James Garfield

David Senra says James Garfield almost certainly would have survived if doctors had left the bullet alone. Lodged in the fatty tissue below and behind his pancreas, the bullet was no continuing danger. Nature formed a capsule of thick, strong, fibrous tissue around it, walled it off from the rest of the body, and rendered it entirely harmless.

Shot 15 years later, the bullet in his back would have been found quickly by x-ray images and the wound treated with antiseptic surgery. He might have been back on his feet within weeks. With modern medical care he likely would have spent no more than a few nights in the hospital. The doctors instead rejected Lister's ideas. They kept probing the woun

David Senra says doctors rejected Joseph Lister's antiseptics even though the death rate among his surgical patients immediately plummeted. Lister knew the difference between his method and the old method was the difference between life and death. Alexander Graham Bell's telephone caught fire in an instant of understanding, and Lister's discovery, one of the most important advances in medical history, was dismissed.

The British surgeon struggled to convince the most experienced and admired physicians and surgeons in the United States of the critical importance of antisepsis, preventing infection by destroying germs. Almost none of them seriously considered putting the theory into practice.

David Senra says James Garfield hated being president because office seekers filled his days, while the work he wanted was to sit in the Library of Congress and read. Senra thinks Garfield spent 17 years in Congress before the presidency.

The office was one he did not seek and did not want. He never rose to the bait and was incapable of carrying a grudge, a trait neither Conkling nor Blaine understood. He called himself a poor hater, but he was a very good fighter and had never walked away from a fight. He wrote that he detested war, yet if it was brought to his door, the bringer would find him at home. The librarian of the Library of Congress, who knew him well, ranked him among the most d

David Senra says James Garfield would fight almost any cause except his own political future. He refused to seek an appointment or promotion of any kind, an early habit that became a central law of his life. He admitted he was morbidly sensitive about any reference to his own achievements, and he did not want to become president.

Becoming president against his will cost him his life 199 days after he was inaugurated. When the presidency came up, he looked the other way. He had spent 17 years in Congress and watched men whose desperate desire for the White House ruin their careers, their character, and their lives. He wrote that he had so long and so often seen the evil effects of the presid

David Senra says James Garfield paid for school by working as a janitor after he could not afford tuition. He convinced the school to trade labor for his education, and he changed from a rough canal man into a passionate, determined student.

He swept floors, hauled wood, and made fires, and he never tried to hide his poverty from the other students. Each morning he left the first lecture early, walked to the tower, and rang the school's enormous bell. He wrote that his tread was firm and free. He soon realized he was an extraordinary, talented student, and the more he learned, the more ambitious he became. In his diary he wrote that the ice was broken, that he was resolved to make a mark in

David Senra says James Garfield refused to praise poverty because he refused to romanticize his childhood. His extraordinary rise from fatherlessness and abject poverty made him the embodiment of the American dream, and he was raised in desperate circumstances.

James Garfield's father died just a few months after his 33rd birthday, in a log cabin he had built four years earlier. The cabin had one room, three small windows, and a rough wooden plank floor. Gaps between the logs were filled with clay in a futile attempt to shut out the brutal Ohio winters. His father's death left his mother with four children to feed and debts she could not hope to pay. James Garfield, the youngest, was not ye

There was the first street light, Billy the Kid became an outlaw, and President James Garfield was in office for about four months until he was shot.

He died from the fallacy of the time, which was getting the bullet out. He had so many people sticking their fingers inside his wound because they didn’t believe in the germ theory of diseases. So really, he died due to medical care of the time.

Three. He was struck in the arm twice and once in the back, which went ended up next to his spine. It was rumored that there were doctors at the train station that immediately began to probe his wound.

Dr. Bliss used Alexander Graham Bell’s invention, the induction balance, which is like a metal detector. One reason is because they didn’t scan the other side of Garfield’s body because Dr. Bliss was certain that he knew where the bullet was. The second reason is because Garfield was on a bed with a lot of metal springs.

Andrew Garfield says an image of his mother reunited with her tribe, after she passed, made sense of why she was hard on herself. She knew she was meant to be in a thousand different places at once giving goodness to people, and she was restricted by her body, by time, and by space.

In the first month or two after she passed, Andrew Garfield felt more connected to her than when she was alive. He says she is here right now and everywhere all at once.

Andrew Garfield says he gets too intense at games and can upset people, because someone who is not trying to win is ruining the game. He plays Werewolf and says he is bad at being the werewolf. He hates the lying and the deception, and he loves accusing people.

Lin-Manuel Miranda says Andrew Garfield took a year to learn to sing and came out an amazing singer for the movie. A swimming-pool scene was in the shoot because Jonathan Larson would swim to get ideas and wrote a stream-of-consciousness song while doing laps. The production had three days in the actual pool Jonathan Larson swam in, in the village, with a stunt double and a special underwater photographer.

Lin-Manuel Miranda says he then found out Andrew Garfield is basically Michael Phelps, because Andrew Garfield's dad is a swim instructor. Andrew Garfield swam better than the stunt double. Lin-Manuel Miranda also says Martin Scorsese threw Andrew Garfield into the wild, and that Andrew G

Lin-Manuel Miranda says he saw Andrew Garfield in Angels in America, both parts, and treated the play as an endurance test. He did not know whether Andrew Garfield had a musical bone in his body, but the performance made him think Andrew Garfield could do anything.

Andrew Garfield and Lin-Manuel Miranda had exchanged an email or two, and Andrew Garfield was a fan of Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda took him out to sushi, told him about the movie, and asked whether he could sing. Andrew Garfield asked when the movie was being made. Lin-Manuel Miranda said not for a year, and Andrew Garfield said that he could sing.

Andrew Garfield says the felt in the studio is a little hard and is not Munich felt. He says Munich is known for making felt, and that you can tell beautifully made felt. While he was shooting The Uprising in Munich, playing a peasant, he spent the free time he had in the felt store.

Andrew Garfield says the term has been massively mischaracterized, misunderstood, and co-opted by people who do not know it. A method is having a method. The Stanislavski method and the Strasberg method try to live truthfully under imagined circumstances, and to feel personal and connected to something interior rather than only a performative exterior.

When Amy Poehler asks whether he has long arms, Andrew Garfield says he does not think that is any of her business. She says Lin-Manuel Miranda had mentioned particularly long swimmer's arms.

Andrew Garfield says David Fincher was less quick with positive reinforcement. When the praise came, Andrew Garfield wanted to cry, stayed stoic, and answered with thanks, because the praise meant so much.

The moment was the laptop-smashing scene in Social Network. They did a few rounds of takes. On the third round of 10 or 15 takes, Andrew Garfield heard nothing. He was on the floor, exhausted and crying, and he describes being broken in a way that felt beautiful.

Andrew Garfield is asked about his first film, with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. He says Bob Redford had a soul for service. Sundance grew out of Robert Redford helping a new neighbor in Utah who was about to be foreclosed on. Robert Redford said he would buy the farm so the neighbor could keep it, he would have to make some money out of it, and they would set up a lab for young filmmakers.

Andrew Garfield says he was terrified and nervous, and then Bob Redford was four hours late. By that point Andrew Garfield was angry. He says it with love, and he says Robert Redford was very late to everything.