Samuel Mudd

Samuel Mudd stands as the 19th-century physician who treated John Wilkes Booth's broken leg hours after Booth assassinated President Lincoln. Abbey Bartlet invokes his case in the President's bedroom to press the ethical duty of doctors to treat any patient in need, regardless of criminal ties. Bartlet counters that Mudd faced trial and conviction for treason over the act, highlighting the legal perils of such obligations. Mudd's precedent shapes the episode's clash between medical imperatives and political realities surrounding the Ayatollah's son's surgery.