Bliss, Doctor Willard, 1825-1889

Doctor Willard Bliss MD; Born August 18, 1825, Brutus, New York, United States; Died February 21, 1889 (aged 63), Washington D.C., United States; Bliss was born in Brutus, New York, to Obediah Bliss (1792–1863) and Marilla Pool (1795–1857); Bliss's first and middle names (Doctor and Willard) were inspired by Dr Samuel Willard, a surgeon from New England; 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; Bliss studied at Cleveland Medical College; During the American Civil War, Bliss was a surgeon with the Third Michigan Infantry. Bliss later became superintendent at Washington D.C.'s Armory Square Hospital; he continued to practice in the city after the war had ended; 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; 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"; On July 2, 1881, Bliss was summoned by Robert Todd Lincoln after James A. Garfield had been shot 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 became Garfield's self-appointed doctor after their return to the White House; Bliss also invited Alexander Graham Bell to test his metal detector on the President, hoping that it would locate the bullet; After Garfield's death, Bliss submitted a claim for $25,000 (equivalent to $649,052 in 2018) for his services to the President. He was offered $6,500 (equivalent to $168,753 in 2018) instead, an offer that he refused; Bliss married Sophia Prentiss (1825–1888) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on May 23, 1849. 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