“The President is somewhat restless…”: Doctors

11:59

supplementary video · Sam O'Nella Academy on YouTube ↗

mind & bodyanalysisNLM Circulating Now1881 · Washington, D.C., USA

“The President is somewhat restless…”: Doctors

the gist

President James Garfield was shot on 2 July 1881 but died only on 19 September, probably more of infection than of the bullet. Doctors repeatedly probed the wound with unwashed fingers and instruments. The first physician on the scene, Smith Townsend, probed the wound within an hour, and others, including Dr D. Willard Bliss, followed. American doctors had largely rejected Joseph Lister's antiseptic methods, and they never found the bullet. Garfield's wound became infected, he developed abscesses and wasted away over 11 weeks. Many historians argue he might have survived if left alone.

so what

Garfield's death is a dramatic example of how medicine's habits, not just disease, can cost lives. It helped US doctors accept germ theory and antiseptic practice.

fun fact

Alexander Graham Bell tried to find the bullet with an electrical metal detector he invented, but it was thrown off by the metal bedsprings.

more on this

background

On July 2, 1881, at 9:30 AM, James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., less than four months into his term as president.

The assassin was Charles J. Guiteau, a mentally ill and delusional office seeker, who had distributed copies of a speech he wrote aimed at promoting Garfield in the 1880 United States presidential election. Guiteau believed his campaigning had been vital to Garfield's eventual victory, and that Garfield owed him a diplomatic post in Europe for his assistance. After months of failed attempts to solicit such a reward from the Garfield administration, he purchased a revolver and began stalking Garfield with the goal of assassinating him, hoping that if he succeeded in doing so, Garfield's vice president Chester A. Arthur would give him the job he wanted upon assuming the presidency.

From Wikipedia: Assassination of James A. Garfield (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

A. Berghaus and C. Upham, published in Frank Leslie's Illus…, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Unknown; part of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Joseph Keppler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

key facts

Country: United States
Located in: Washington, D.C.
Date: 2 July 1881

Facts: Wikidata (CC0)

U.S. National Library of Medicine

source: NLM Circulating Now ↗

historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

Usman Khawaja refuses to answer Sandpapergate question about Pat Cummins | 7.30

from ABC News In-depth

One of the darkest days in Australia's sporting history has been dragged back into the spotlight.

A new autobiography by former Test cricketer Usman Khawaja has made explosive revelations about the Australian Test team's 2018 ball-tampering saga in South Africa.

7.30 host Sarah Ferguson speaks to Usman Khawaja.

7.30 is the ABC's flagship current affairs program, delivering original journalism, exclusive investigations, in-depth analysis and interviews on the major issues affecting Australia and the world.

With on-the-ground reporting from ABC journalists across every state and territory and around the world, 7.30 has the latest on politics, policy, the economy, cost of living, housing, health, climate and energy, national security and global affairs.

Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.

on YouTube: ABC News In-depth ↗