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The Stormy Petrel & the Bull Moose
J.B. Murphy & the Attempted Assassination of Theodore Roosevelt

Introduction

On October 14, 1912, a delusional saloonkeeper shot Theodore Roosevelt as he campaigned for an unprecedented third term as president. After delivering a 50-page speech with blood dripping from his wounded chest, Roosevelt was brought from Milwaukee to Chicago, where he was met by the renowned and controversial surgeon – and Northwestern professor – John Benjamin Murphy. 

The Stormy Petrel & the Bull Moose: J.B. Murphy and the Attempted Assassination of Theodore Roosevelt, on display in the Eisenberg Gallery (the hallway connecting the Ward Building and the Method Atrium), tells the story of the chance encounter between these larger-than-life figures in American history, exploring Murphy’s colorful career as well as the aftermath of Roosevelt’s shooting. 

Artifacts on display include Murphy’s personal surgical instruments. Most of these items were donated in 2021 by Chicago’s Mercy Hospital, where Murphy was surgeon-in-chief and where he gave his world-famous surgical demonstrations. This important gift supplements Galter’s existing Murphy collections, including personal papers and items donated by Murphy’s great-granddaughter, Barbara Miller, in 2010. Also on display is a Murphy button, the most famous of Murphy’s surgical innovations; this rare item was part of a 2013 gift from Julie Smith, MD. 

Credits

Curated and designed by Katie Lattal, MA, Special Collections Librarian, and Emma Florio, MLIS, Special Collections Library Assistant.

J.B. Murphy was a renowned surgeon, internationally recognized for his superb technical skill, clinical expertise, and innovation across surgical specialties. By 1912, he had written over 100 articles, served as President of the American Medical Association, and held the positions of Chief of Surgery at Mercy Hospital and Chair of the Department of Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School, predecessor of Feinberg School of Medicine.

He was a dramatic figure in the operating room. With instrument in hand, he fairly thrilled the audience.

William J. Mayo. “In Memoriam.” The Clinics of John B. Murphy, M.D., at Mercy Hospital.

 

Despite his greatness in many particulars, Dr. Murphy had a singular ability to arouse envy, distrust, and dislike.

Leslie Arey, Northwestern University Medical School 1859- 1979: A Pioneer in Educational Reform.

Loyal Davis dubbed Murphy “the stormy petrel of surgery” because he was often a harbinger of conflict, just as sailors thought stormy petrels presaged approaching storms. Murphy had a “personal genius for creating virulent opposition.”  (Book Notice: J. B. Murphy, Stormy Petrel of Surgery, JAMA.)

[Patients’] attitude, at which I always marveled, was that if Murphy couldn’t do it, it couldn’t be done; it was the will of God.

Paul Magnuson, Ring the Night Bell. Founder of Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly RIC).

 

You could be sure that life with John Benjamin Murphy would never be dull. His restless energy, flamboyant personality and superb technic, his daring in trying the new and unorthodox, his personal feuds with half the other surgeons in town, combined to create an atmosphere of excitement, of being on the inside of the greatest and most dramatic developments in the whole world of medicine at that time.

Paul Magnuson, Ring the Night Bell.

On October 14, 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was shot on his way to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee. John Schrank, the assassin, sought to keep Roosevelt from a third term as President. After ensuring Schrank was safe from the crowd, Roosevelt proceeded to the venue to deliver his speech, famously speaking for over an hour while bleeding from the chest. His folded 50 page speech and his spectacle case slowed the bullet.

Friends, I shall have to ask you to be as quiet as possible. I do not know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But, fortunately, I had my manuscript, so, you see, I was going to make a long speech. And, friends, there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through, and it probably saved the bullet from going into my heart.

Roosevelt prefacing his speech at the Auditorium in Milwaukee not long after he was shot.

Roosevelt traveled to Chicago for treatment, where four leading surgeons were to coordinate his care. J.B. Murphy met Roosevelt’s train ahead of his colleagues—either coincidentally or deliberately—and thereafter managed Roosevelt’s care at Mercy Hospital. The doctors’ decision not to remove the bullet was based on x-ray images, a relatively new diagnostic tool. X-rays confirmed that the bullet had not penetrated the lung, but was too deeply imbedded in the chest cavity to remove safely.

There was only room enough for one actor when J.B. held forth. Like Theodore Roosevelt, if it was a wedding, he wanted to be the bride, if it was a funeral, he envied the corpse.

Archibald Church, in a letter to Loyal Davis on the publication of Davis’ book, J.B. Murphy, Stormy Petrel of Surgery. It is a variation of a witticism about Roosevelt coined by his daughter Alice Roosevelt Longfellow and echoed by many.

Murphy developed diagnostic techniques that bore his name, such as Murphy’s punch for kidney infections, Murphy’s sequence for appendicitis, and Murphy’s sign and Murphy’s test for cholecystitis. Most famous of his innovations was the Murphy button, a device which revolutionized abdominal surgery.

 

“An epoch-making invention in surgery of the intestines”