Winner, 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science WritingShort-listed for the 2018 Wellcome Book PrizeA Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers WeeklyA Best History Book of 2017, The Guardian"Warning: She spares no detail!" ―Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead WakeIn The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. She conjures up early operating theaters―no place for the squeamish―and surgeons, who, working before anesthesia, were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than patients’ afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn’t have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the riddle and change the course of history.Fitzharris dramatically reconstructs Lister’s career path to his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection and could be countered by a sterilizing agent applied to wounds. She introduces us to Lister’s contemporaries―some of them brilliant, some outright criminal―and leads us through the grimy schools and squalid hospitals where they learned their art, the dead houses where they studied, and the cemeteries they ransacked for cadavers.Eerie 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.
✔ Author(s): Lindsey Fitzharris
✔ Title: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
✔ Rating : 4.8 out of 5 base on (4316 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0374537968
✔ ISBN-13: 9780374537968
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris
Beata Shepard
The world created in this book was unlike anything I've ever encountered. The author's imagination knows no bounds, and I was completely mesmerized by the fantastical setting.
Virginia Savage
This book is a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom. The insights offered by the characters and their experiences have left a lasting impression on me.
Katherine Stevenson
I couldn't stop raving about this book to my friends and family. It's a literary gem that deserves all the praise. I can't wait to dive into more works by this talented author.
