The Invention That Killed a President

 On July 2, 1881, U.S. President, James Garfield, was shot by a would-be assassin. He was shot twice at point blank range, sure to die by the assassin’s hand, but he didn’t die from the gunshots.

    Our story today is the story of two inventions. One was used in an attempt to save the life of President Garfield – the other killed him. You say, “What invention could have killed the president?” Listen to this story

    On July, 2, 1881, our 20^th president, James A Garfield, was shot by an assassin named Charles Guiteau. The president was waiting to board a train at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station when Guiteau approached him from behind, shooting him in the back, twice, one of the bullets lodged in his spine.     At first, the doctors expected that the president would die, but amazingly, after several days Garfield was still alive. But the doctors knew they had to get those bullets out if he was to recover. Now they had not yet invented the x-ray so the only way they could hope to find the bullets was to probe into the bullet holes looking for them. This was highly painful and likely to increase infection - what were they going to do?    Well, there was this invention. A new amazing device still being tested by its inventor – a man we all know by the name of Alexander Graham Bell, the man credited with the invention of the first working telephone. And since his one great invention, he had worked on a number of other new ideas, including an experimental model of a metal detector – and it worked! In fact, he had already used it to find bullets never removed from the bodies of Civil War survivors.      So, whenever he heard of the great tragedy and of the doctor's predicament regarding President Garfield he immediately made his way to the White House, bringing along his metal detector. He could only hope and pray that his new detector could find the bullets and have them removed before infection set in or Garfield bled to death.    As he reached the President's bedside he immediately hooked up his detector and began to generate small currents of electricity through the detector coils. The detector worked on a simple fact. When its coils became close to the metal bullets the detector would send a signal telling the position of the bullets. All hopes were high as Alexander Graham Bell listen for the hum through the coils - the hum that would tell him where the bullets were lodged in the President's body.      But try as he may, Bell could not find the bullets. For some reason the metal detector would not stop humming. After much effort, great inventor Alexander Bell had to stop – sadly, he had failed.    For another four weeks President Garfield fought to overcome his grave illness; and, finally, on September 19, 1881, President James Garfield suffered serious hemorrhaging, heart failure, and he died - very sad.    But just what happened? Why did Alexander Graham Bell's invention not work? Was it a failure? Not at all; in fact, it worked perfectly.     The problem was no one knew that President Garfield was lying on another all-new invention - the coil spring mattress. And the metal coils in that mattress were causing interference, so that the bullets could never be detected - how very strange.    But there’s one last odd twist to this story. When Garfield was shot at the train station, there was another man there with him - the son of a previous president. His name was Lincoln, Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of assassinated president Abraham Lincoln. He was an eyewitness to the assassination.

    Folks, it is true – truth is stranger than fiction.