At the age of fourteen, he left school and became an apprentice to his own father, a wine merchant. . This really is butchery of the first water. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, most microscopes were sold as gentlemen's toys. Seventy years earlier her grandfather had been the first doctor to successfully treat a young agricultural worker with a compound fractured femur by setting the leg in traction in a trough filled with plaster of Paris. You will race through it, wincing as you go, but never wanting to stop." They thought disease was created spontaneously and could not be stopped. Churchyards were bursting at the seams with human remains, posing huge threats to public health. Before 1848, no major hospital had a salaried surgeon on its staff, and most surgeons (with the exception of a notable few) made very little money from their private practices. For those living near these pits, the smell was unbearable. You Save 9%. I recently finished reading Lindsey Fitzharris’ The Butchering Art.I first learnt of the book when Fitzharris was on Joe Rogan’s podcast.I had no idea who she was, but the accompanying blurb, “…an author and medical historian,” piqued my interest. —BookishA Publishers Weekly Book of the Week"Pulsating, technicoloured . Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery, The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine, Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages, The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth: And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine, Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew, It's Not the Trauma, It's the Drama: Stories by a Chicago Fire Department Paramedic, The Art of Fully Living: 1 Man. The Butchering Art is one of my favourite non fiction reads this year - I couldn’t put it down! He drew and labeled all the bones in the cranium, as well as those of the hands, from both the front and the back. Bloomsbury, the area surrounding the university where Lister would spend his time as a student, for example, had the pleasing aura of a freshly scrubbed baby. This powerful memoir will tug at your heart, lift your soul, and open your eyes to the strength of the human spirit. . Unlike the foldaway versions that tourists tucked in their pockets and carried with them on trips to the seaside, the instrument before him was something altogether grander. Like his father, young Lister was a proficient artist — a skill that would later help him to document in startling detail his observations made during his medical career. During the summer of 1841, at the age of fourteen, he wrote to his father, who was away attending to the family's wine business, "When Mamma was out I was by myself and had nothing to do but draw skeletons." Auto Suggestions are available once you type at least 3 letters. The Butchering Art for whatever reason popped up in my recommendations, and never one to turn down interesting historical trivia - decided to purchase. ... Those engaged in scientific researches constantly show us that they realize not less vividly, but more vividly, than others, the poetry of their subjects. There's a problem loading this menu right now. This is popular history at its best.” —Dean Jobb, The Scotsman“The Butchering Art is an absorbing medical and social history that will leave you feeling both enlightened and thankful to benefit from the advances Lister (and his wife) popularized.” —Sarah Harrison Smith, Omnivoracious“A fascinating account of how hospitals became places of healing rather than death.” —The Daily Mail"The Butchering Art is a formidable achievement —a rousing tale 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." Most lenses caused distortion due to light of different wavelengths being diffracted at various angles through glass. The article continued by imagining that the university would be built in the notorious slums near Westminster Abbey named Tothill Fields; "in order to meet any objections which heads of families may make to the perilous exposure of their sons to the casualties arising from crowded streets, a large body of plain respectable females, of the middle age, will be engaged to attend students to and from the College in the mornings and evenings of each day." LITTLE JOSEPH LISTER STOOD ON his toes and put his eye to the ocular lens of his father's latest compound microscope. The story it tells is one of abiding fascination.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times"Vivid, gory." Lister had plenty of opportunities to explore miniature worlds with the microscope while he was growing up. The Butchering Art is a spectacular book—deliciously gruesome and utterly gripping. Lister's father exemplified this. 0 likes. Although only ten miles from the city, Upton could only be reached by horse and buggy trundling along the muddy tracks that passed for roads at that time. I was disappointed not to learn more about his childless marriage or whether he upheld his Quaker beliefs. 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. I read 25% of it before I forced myself to stop. ―Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City"With an eye for historical detail and an ear for vivid prose, Lindsey Fitzharris tells a spectacular story about one of the most important moments in the history of medicine: the rise of sterile surgery. . Bodies were crammed on top of one another in graves, most of which were merely open pits with row after row of coffins. * In the midst of all this grime and muck, the city's citizens were trying to make improvements to their capital. Lindsey Fitzharris recounts the fascinating story of Joseph Lister, and his quest to improve the chances of patients undergoing surgery in 19th century Britain who, more often than not, died of … ―Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity"The Butchering Art is a brilliant and gripping account of the almost unimaginable horrors of surgery and postoperative infection before Joseph Lister transformed it all with his invention of antisepsis. The art critic John Ruskin called it a "ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, pouring out poison at every pore." It didn’t feel like cut and dry historical facts. It will make you forever grateful to Joseph Lister, the man who saved us from the horrors of pre-antiseptic surgery, and to Lindsey Fitzharris, who brings to life the harrowing and deadly sights, smells, and sounds of a nineteenth-century hospital." [Fitzharris] infuses her thoughtful and finely crafted examination of this [antiseptic] revolution with the same sense of wonder and compassion Lister himself brought to his patients, colleagues, and students . A fan of The Lord of the Rings? ―Wendy Moore, The Guardian, "The Butchering Art is a formidable achievement ―a rousing tale 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, The Wall Street Journal, “[Fitzharris] paints a compelling portrait of a man of conviction, humor and, above all, humanity. Most makers supplied their wealthy clients with a set of prepared slides of animal bone sections, fish scales, and delicate flowers. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2017. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2018. His father wrote of the "folding windows open to the garden; and the temperate warmth and stillness, and the chirping of birds and hum of insects, the bright lawn and aloe and the darker spread of the cedars and chequered sky above.". —Henry Marsh, bestselling author of Do No Harm"Electric. other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Ghastly, but fascinating! Life was a gift to be employed in honoring God and helping one's neighbor, not in the pursuit of frivolities. You will race through it, wincing as you go, but never wanting to stop." Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. Quackery (A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything), Dr. Simplicity was the Quaker way of life. Through observation, experimentation, and a passion to keep patients alive, Lister eventually overcame the prevailing beliefs of his day and saved countless lives. Lister escaped many of the dangerous medical treatments that some of his contemporaries experienced while growing up, because his father believed in vis medicatrix naturae, or "the healing power of nature." Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone discovered and did what made them feel fully alive? —Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Fitzharris knows how to engage readers in fascinating and shocking details about medical history . It didn’t feel like cut and dry historical facts. You can view Barnes & Noble’s Privacy Policy. However, patients were still dying of post-surgical infections in high numbers, and Louis Pasteur's ideas about germs were still academic and not widely disseminated. PaperBack by Lindsey Fitzharris I learned two essential things reading ‘The Butchering Art.’ Society is benefited by the good health of all the individuals within it, and that innovation has been fought by the general population throughout human history. . The introduction of ether to British medicine in 1846 was a critical turning point because it afforded surgeons more time to perform procedures. * LISTER FOUND HIMSELF very far away from the life he had known as a child when he began his studies at University College London (UCL) at the age of seventeen. The drama of Lister's mission to shape modern medicine is as exciting as any novel." Their construction forced landlords to hire men to remove "night soil" from overflowing cesspools in the city's buildings. Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2017. Members save with free shipping everyday! Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2017, Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2017. Amid protests and concerns, however, the edifice of UCL was built, and the school began accepting students in October 1828. What Lister saw, which his colleagues did not, was that doctors in the Victorian era were making people sick. Sheep were hurled into its depths, breaking their legs before being knifed, flayed, and butchered by the men below. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. In my experience, people (within and without academia alike) are comfortable with nuance and also with the idea that science is socially constructed and historically contingent. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. The Butchering Art is a spectacular book—deliciously gruesome and utterly gripping. . Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime. His village of Upton had a mere 12,738 inhabitants. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Lister observed the first operation when ether was used and surgeons could finally take more time with their knives and saws. a remarkable life and time." Dr. Fitzharris takes you on a journey of the past that traces the steps through history and outlines why we know what we know about the human body and the world that surrounds us. . With Alexander Tol, Perry Jaques, Declan Cooke, Adrian Bouchet. Thank you, Dr. Fitzharris, for this beautiful book, for all the research and effort that went into it, and for honouring Lister’s legacy so magnificently. —John J. Ross, The Wall Street Journal“[Fitzharris] paints a compelling portrait of a man of conviction, humor and, above all, humanity. In an age when most medicinal concoctions contained highly toxic drugs like heroin, cocaine, and opium, Joseph Jackson's ideas might not have been too wide of the mark. “As he neared the end of his life, Lister expressed the desire that if his story was ever told, it would be done through his scientific achievements alone,” Fitzharris notes, respecting his wish and fulfilling it in the context of a remarkable life and time. I was pleasantly surprised how the narration flowed in a very story like manner. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Author Lindsey Fitzharris' The Butchering Art cuts beneath the surface of John Lister's life to unveil a titanic intellectual struggle in the world of medicine, as well as Lister's role in a major medical innovation. “Lister’s methods transformed surgery from a butchering art to a modern science, one where newly tried and tested methodologies trumped hackneyed practices,” Fitzharris writes. 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