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.
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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