Lindsey Fitzharris has a PhD in the history of science and medicine from the University of Oxford. She is the creator of the popular website The Chirurgeon's Apprentice, and is the writer and presenter of the YouTube series Under the Knife. She writes for The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Lancet, and New Scientist.
Winner of the PEN / E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Staff Pick on NPR's best books of 2017 Listed in the New York
Times' 10 New Books We Recommend This Week Listed on The
Ultimate Buzzfeed Books Guide "for the person whose
interests skew morbid" One of Medscapes' "Books that doctors
would love to give (or receive!)" "Atmospheric . . . The story it
tells is one of abiding fascination." --Jennifer Senior, The
New York Times Vivid, gory. --Agatha French, Los Angeles
Times "[A] vivid picture. . . Some of it reads as the brutal relic
of a vanished past; some of it reads as a brutal relic of the
present."--Genevieve Valentine, NPR Readers interested in the
medical field can't go wrong with this one. --Bookish A Publishers
Weekly Book of the Week Pulsating, technicoloured . . .
[Fitzharris] has an eye for morbid detail, visceral imagery and
comic potential. --Wendy Moore, The Guardian Book of the Day,
The Guardian Brilliant. --Kate Womersley, The Spectator
"Fast-paced, thoroughly researched . . . Fitzharris documents her
hero's long struggle against naysayers and rivals, as well as the
setbacks he faced in his personal and professional life, in an
engaging journey into the past. 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.
--John J. Ross, The Wall Street Journal "[Fitzharris] paints a
compelling portrait of a man of conviction, humor and, above all,
humanity. . . The Butchering Art is thoroughly enjoyable. --The
Guardian In The Butchering Art, Lindsey Fitzharris
becomes our Dante, leading us through the macabre hell of
nineteenth-century surgery to tell the story of Joseph Lister, the
man who solved one of medicine's most daunting and lethal puzzles.
With gusto, Dr. Fitzharris takes us into the operating theaters of
yore as Lister awakens to the true nature of the killer that turned
so many surgeries into little more than slow-moving executions.
Warning: She spares no detail! --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. The
Butchering Art is a spectacular book--deliciously gruesome and
utterly gripping. You will race through it, wincing as you go, but
never wanting to stop. --Ed Yong, bestselling author of I
Contain Multitudes The Butchering Art is medical history at its
most visceral and vivid. 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. --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. It is the story of one of the truly great men of
medicine and of the triumph of humane scientific method and dogged
persistence over dogmatic ignorance. --Henry Marsh, bestselling
author of Do No Harm Electric. The drama of Lister's mission to
shape modern medicine is as exciting as any novel. --Dan Snow,
BBC presenter and author Excellent . . . [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
remarkable life and time. --Publishers Weekly (starred
review)
Fitzharris knows how to engage readers in fascinating and shocking
details about medical history . . . In deftly capturing an 'epochal
moment when medicine and science merged, ' the author also offers
an important reminder that, while many regard science as the key to
progress, it can only help in so far as people are willing to open
their minds to embrace change. --Kirkus Reviews (starred
review) Fascinating and shocking. --Kirkus Reviews (starred
review) A slightly gory, occasionally humorous, and very
enjoyable biography of a man whose kindness, care, and curiosity
changed medicine forever. --Susanne Caro, Library
Journal
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