JESSE JAMES’ PHYSICIANS

On 3 April 1882, Robert Newton Ford killed Jesse James at the outlaw’s home in St. Joseph, Missouri. Residents were surprised the famous outlaw had been living in their city and an inquest was held to confirm the identity of the man and to record the means by which he had died. A jury confirmed the man was indeed Jesse James and that he had been killed by Bob Ford, but doctors failed to find the twenty-two wounds of identification alluded to by Jesse’s killer. Instead, they found just six, two of which Bob Ford had himself inflicted. This inevitably reduced the number of physicians hastily required by the outlaw, but the remaining number is still significant and their contribution to Jesse’s story, as well as to their wider communities, are worthy of note. They are pioneers in their field, innovators who recognised their craft was not perfect but who endeavoured to make it better. Their lives were so significant in fact that Jesse James, whose fame would ultimately dwarf theirs, is rarely mentioned in their oftimes over-looked biographies. Those who treated Jesse when he was wounded or sick, those he employed to treat his wife, received his letters, vaccinated his children, came to the families aid when in dire need of it, or performed his autopsy; from local physicians to noted surgeons, from those who travelled to patients on horseback to those who owned mansions and published books, from lifelong scholars to forward thinking teachers. They are all brought together here.