The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

Description

Review Gruesomely compelling ... A fascinating account (Nick Rennison Daily Mail)Gloriously pulsating ... [Fitzharris] has an eye for morbid detail, visceral imagery and comic potential. From out of this hellish vision, Lister emerges as the cool, modern, scientific saviour to whom we should all give thanks (Wendy Moore Guardian)Atmospheric ... The Butchering Art has its share of resplendent gore (Jennifer Senior New York Times)Thoroughly enjoyable ... With The Butchering Art, Fitzharris explores the intersection of Lister's life, the development of antiseptic surgery, and the horrors of the wards with an almost surgical precision (Nicola Davis, 'Book of the Day' Observer)The Butchering Art is a formidable achievement - a rousing take told with brio, featuring a real-life hero worthy of the ages and jolts of Victorian horror to rival the most lurid moments of Wilkie Collins (John J. Ross Wall Street Journal)Brilliant ... Thanks to Lister's dogged pursuit of knowledge and fervent attention to the needs of surgical patients, death rates plummeted. Fitzharris tells this story with an equal attention to detail (Joanna Bourke Telegraph)Scintillating and shocking ... A book full of gangrene, pus and hideous pain, which will make you thankful never to suffer the horror of having a tumour removed from your jaw with no pain relief (Bee Wilson Sunday Times)Hugely entertaining and informative ... Fitzharris brings [Joseph Lister's] sensibility to life with great energy and elegance, and her account is vivid and entertaining, as well as enjoyably (and sometimes eye-wateringly) graphic. The result is rich with anecdote and intellectual excitement, replete with emotional resonance and narrative pleasure (Matthew Adams National)An illuminating and grisly look at the work of hacksaw-wielding surgeons of the 19th century (Sian Cain Guardian)Well researched and written with verve... A fine read full of vivid detail, prompting thoughtful reflection on the past, and the challenging future, of surgical practice (Tilli Tansey Nature) From the Inside Flap In the nineteenth century, operating theatres were known as 'gateways of death', since half of those who underwent surgery didn't survive the experience. It was an era when a broken leg could still lead to amputation, and surgeons didn't wash their hands, or their tools, between operations. While the discovery of anesthesia in the 1840s lessened the misery for patients, ironically it led to more deaths, as surgeons took greater risks. And in squalid, overcrowded hospitals, doctors remained baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more dangerous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: Joseph Lister, a melancholy young Quaker surgeon. By making the then-audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection - and could be treated with antiseptics - he solved the riddle of post-operative death and changed the history of medicine forever.In The Butchering Art, historian Lindsey Fitzharris tells the enthralling story of how one of Britain's greatest medical minds finally brought centuries of savagery, sawing and gangrene to an end. She introduces us to Lister's contemporaries - some brilliant, some outright criminal - and leads us through the grimy schools and hospitals in London and Edinburgh where they learned their art, the dead houses where they studied, and the cemeteries they ransacked for cadavers.Vivid and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world. See all Product description