Doctor Willard Bliss

D.W. Bliss was born in Brutus, New York, to Obediah Bliss (1792–1863) and Marilla Pool (1795–1857).{{Cite book |last=Baxter |first=Albert |url=http://www.migenweb.net/kent/baxter1891/62medicine.html |title=History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan |publisher=Munsell & Company |year=1891 |access-date=September 25, 2011 |archive-date=March 20, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320032815/http://www.migenweb.net/kent/baxter1891/62medicine.html |url-status=dead }} Bliss's first and middle names (Doctor and Willard) were inspired by Samuel Willard, a surgeon from New England.{{Cite web |year=1881 |title=How Dr. Bliss Got His Name |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1881/07/09/98564242.pdf |access-date=September 30, 2012 |website=The New York Times}}{{Cite book |last=Appleton |title=Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events |publisher=D. Appleton & Company |year=1890 |volume=29 |location=New York City |page=619}}{{Cite book |last=Smith Lamb |first=Daniel |title=History of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia: 1817-1909 |publisher=Medical Society of the District of Columbia |year=1909 |page=277}} During his youth, the Bliss family lived in Savoy, Massachusetts. Bliss had one brother, Zenas (July 4, 1832 – April 23, 1877).

Bliss treated Zachary Taylor for malaria at Fort Jesup, Louisiana, in 1844.{{Cite book |last=Bumgarner |first=John R |title=The Health of the Presidents |publisher=McFarland & Co |year=1994 |location=Jefferson, NC |page=73}}{{Cite web |last=DoctorZebra |title=Presidential Physician: Doctor Willard Bliss |url=http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/dr_bliss.htm |access-date=September 25, 2011 |publisher=DoctorZebra}}

Bliss studied at Cleveland Medical College, submitting his thesis on Pseudarthrosis or False-Joint in 1849.{{Cite book |last=Bliss |first=Doctor Willard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oPpONwAACAAJ |title=A Thesis on Pseudarthrosis or False-Joint |publisher=Cleveland Medical College |year=1849 |location=Cleveland, Ohio |via=Google Books}} He advertised and sold cundurango, a product of Ruehssia cundurango, incorrectly claiming it as a "wonderful remedy for cancer, syphilis, scrofula, ulcer...and all other chronic blood diseases", for which he was expelled from the Washington, D.C. Medical Society in 1853.{{Cite journal |last=Herndon |first=James H. |date=December 2013 |title=Ignorance is Bliss |url=http://www.orthojournalhms.org/volume15/research/journalArticles/herndonIgnorance.pdf |journal=The Harvard Orthopaedic Journal |volume=15}}

During the American Civil War, Bliss was a surgeon with the Third Michigan Infantry.[https://catalog.archives.gov/id/83861337 Combined Military Service Record] Bliss later became superintendent at Washington, D.C.'s Armory Square Hospital; he continued to practice in the city after the war had ended. In April 1863, he accepted a $500 bribe to use a certain inventor's stove in the hospital and was held for several days in the Old Capitol Prison.{{Cite book |last=Millard |first=Candice |author-link=Candice Millard |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0385535007 |title=Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President |publisher=Random House-Doubleday |year=2011 |isbn=978-0385535007 |location=New York, NY, USA |access-date=2 February 2016}}

Bliss was expelled from the District of Columbia Medical Society for his support of homeopathy and his opposition to the society's exclusion of black members.[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/garfield-whoswho/ "Who's Who: Dr. Willard Bliss"], American Experience: Murder of a President, WGBH, PBS, retrieved October 2, 2020. After having his career threatened for embracing the baseless field of homeopathy, Bliss was hesitant to accept another new movement in medicine, the antiseptic methods proposed by Joseph Lister.

Bliss was mentioned in correspondence by Walt Whitman, who claimed that Bliss answered the House of Representatives' proposal for his pension in 1887 by saying, "I am of opinion that no one person who assisted in the hospitals during the war accomplished so much good to the soldiers and for the Government as Mr. Whitman".

File:D. Willard and Zenas E. Bliss.jpg

{{main|Assassination of James A. Garfield}}

On July 2, 1881, Bliss was summoned by Robert Todd Lincoln after James A. Garfield had been shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Bliss examined Garfield's bullet wounds with his fingers and metal probes, concluding the bullet was in the President's liver.

Bliss immediately commandeered as Garfield's doctor, most likely to restore his own reputation, after their return to the White House. He ordered to have the president isolated, confining him to a room in the White House.{{Cite book |last1=Oliver |first1=Willard M |title=Killing the President: Assassinations, Attempts, and Rumored Attempts on U.S. Commanders-in-Chief |last2=Marion |first2=Nancy E |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-313-36474-7 |location=Santa Barbara, CA |page=47}} Garfield's personal physician Jedediah Hyde Baxter arrived at the White House the next day to see Garfield; after a heated exchange, Bliss ousted Baxter, and wrote a letter to other doctors requesting them not to see Garfield. As trained nurses were uncommon at this time, Bliss used Cabinet members' wives as help, even though they had no knowledge of nurses' duties. Two days following the shooting, Bliss summoned two surgeons, David Hayes Agnew and Frank Hastings Hamilton, to help. Throughout the next weeks, Bliss repeatedly probed Garfield's wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments. As Garfield's condition grew increasingly worse and he became unable to keep down his food, Bliss began rectally feeding him.

Bliss also invited Alexander Graham Bell to test his metal detector on the President, hoping that it would locate the bullet.{{r|Millard|p=230}} The device's signal was thought to be distorted by the metal bed springs.Peskin (1978), p.598.e.g. Bill Bryson: Made in America: an Informal History of the English Language in the United States, Black Swan, 1998, p.102. Later the detector was proved to work perfectly and would have found the bullet had Bliss allowed Bell to use the device on Garfield's left side as well his right side.{{r|Millard|p=298}}

After Garfield's death, Bliss submitted a claim for $25,000 ({{Inflation|US|25,000|1881|fmt=eq|r=-4}}) for his services to the President.{{Cite journal |last=Minnesota State Medical Association |year=1943 |title=Minnesota Medicine |journal=Minnesota Medicine |volume=26 |pages=552}} He was offered $6,500 ({{Inflation|US|6,500|1881|fmt=eq|r=-4}}) instead, an offer that he refused.{{r|Millard|p=294}}

Some believed even at the time that Bliss was guilty of malpractice, a claim unsuccessfully raised by Guiteau's attorneys during the trial.

Bliss married Sophia Prentiss (1825–1888{{Cite web |last=Oak Hill Cemetery |year=2009 |title=LOT 212 East |url=http://www.oakhillcemeterydc.org/Burials/212e.pdf |access-date=September 25, 2011 |publisher=Oak Hill Cemetery |location=Washington, D.C. |archive-date=March 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323105239/http://www.oakhillcemeterydc.org/Burials/212e.pdf |url-status=dead }}) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on May 23, 1849.{{Cite web |year=1997 |title=Ohio Marriages |url=http://www.prenticenet.com/news/97.3/oh_marriages.htm |access-date=September 25, 2011 |website=PrenticeNet}} They had four children: Elliss Baker (born April 25, 1850), a dentist; Clara Bliss Hinds, a medical practitioner; Willie Prentiss (born February 1854, died August 17, 1856 "by an accident") and Eugenie Prentiss (born August 10, 1855). The family lived in a house in Washington, D.C. built by John Quincy Adams.

Sophia died in January 1888 in Washington, D.C.; Bliss died in the same city on February 21, 1889. His death was attributed to heart failure or apoplexy.

• {{Cite book |last=Bliss |first=Doctor Willard |title=A thesis on pseudarthrosis or false-joint |publisher=Cleveland Medical College |year=1849 |location=Cleveland, OH}}
• {{Cite book |last=Bliss |first=Willard |url=https://archive.org/details/101470778.nlm.nih.gov |title=Feeding Per Rectum: As Illustrated in the Case of the Late President Garfield, and Others|date=1882 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Bliss |first=Doctor Willard |title=Excerpts from opinions of distinguished medical men in this and other countries justifying the treatment of the late President Garfield |publisher=Gibson Brothers |year=1882 |location=Washington, D.C.}}
• {{Cite book |last=Bliss |first=Doctor Willard |title=The Morgan horse: an essay on Justin Morgan and his family |year=1890}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Cite book |last=Deppisch, Ludwig M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786429763 |title=The White House Physician: A History from Washington to George W. Bush |publisher=McFarland |year=2007 |isbn=978-0786429769 |location=Jefferson, NC, USA |access-date=2 February 2016}}

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Category:1825 births

Category:1889 deaths

Category:Physicians from New York (state)

Category:People from Brutus, New York

Category:People of Michigan in the American Civil War

Category:Assassination of James A. Garfield

Category:19th-century American physicians

Category:Washington, D.C., in the American Civil War

Category:American homeopaths

Category:Medical malpractice