I highly recommend this history book. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. President James Garfield (the 20th U.S. President) was a wonderful man that I think he would have left history as a great president if he had lived long enough to finish at the very least his first presidency term. Sadly, in 1881, just a few months after he was elected, he was shot by Charles Guiteau, a true madman. James Garfield survived the initial shooting only to succumb, a month after torturous medical treatments and preventable mistakes, to sepsis caused by medical ignorance and most significantly by human arrogance. This was a medical nightmare. Ironically, Garfield would have survived the shooting if he had received no medical treatment. I never thought I would cry while reading a nonfiction book about a U.S. President dead well over a century, but I did, and my heart is still heavy. This book brought me, in the best way possible, emotions of frustration, anger (I wanted to kick Dr. Bliss out of President Garfield's room and throw him to the sea), and deep, deep sadness not only for the unjust and senseless loss of this great man and the pain his family and friends had to endure, but also for the intense suffering President James Garfield went through at the hands of doctors (Particularly, at the hands of Dr. D. Willard Bliss) led by hubris and selfish, controlling attitude instead of a collaborative spirit and selfless care for their patient.