the first concussion of that time. After the king's death, they found that his brain was in awful shape, "yellowed and putrefied" and found "pools of blackened fluid beneath the meninges". This is the medical discovery/advancement that would set the stage for generations to come: the fact that brain damage could be present despite no obvious fractures or surface wounds. Part II: Cells, Senses, Circuits Chapter 2: The Assassin's Soup This chapter begins with a troubled man: Charles Guiteau. He had apparently heard God speak to him, saying that he should assassinate the president at the time: James Garfield. The man, arguably insane before his attempt to kill the president, had endured a lot in his life such as divorce and being relentlessly made fun of by many groups of people for his unsightly appearance. After much planning, he shot Garfield in the lower back, not killing him right away, but being the ultimate cause of his death (Guiteau claimed that doctors killed Garfield, he had just shot him). Guiteau's lawyer (who was, subsequently, his brother) George Scoville, pled insanity. Though, after many tests with various court-appointed psychologists/psychiatrists, he was declared sane because he could differentiate between right and wrong. During the trial, a neurosurgeon Edward Charles Spitzka pointed out that there was more than likely underlying trouble in Guiteau's mind. After the trial concluded and Guiteau passed, an autopsy of his brain was conducted. By this time, autopsy had evolved into a microscopic art, and so Spitzka took to the microscope with samples of Guiteau's brain. Of course, Spitzka found holes in his gray matter and extensive damage to the tissue that "nourished neurons". Later, it was declared that Guiteau was more than likely a schizophrenic. During this time, another scientist, Camillo Golgi, was brewing up reticulum theory. He had spilled silver solution on brain samples and then looked at them under a microscope. What he saw stunned him: neurons. He noticed they had three parts: the cell body, axon, and dendrites, and he was the first to see them in such detail. He could determine no space between the neurons and emerged a supporter of reticulum theory. Another scientist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, was enamored by the pictures of neurons that Golgi produced. Despite his fascination with the drawings, though, he disagreed with reticulum theory. He noticed that, under a microscope, gray matter neurons were not fused together.