The spellbinding story of a visionary British surgeon who changed medicine forever.
Lindsey Fitzharris received her doctorate in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology at the University of Oxford and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Wellcome Institute. She is the creator of the popular website The Chirurgeon's Apprentice, and she writes and presents the YouTube series Under the Knife. She has written for the Guardian, the Lancet, the New Scientist, Penthouse, the Huffington Post and Medium, and appeared on PBS, Channel 4 UK, BBC and National Geographic.
Gruesomely compelling ... A fascinating account
*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
*Guardian*
Atmospheric ... The Butchering Art has its share of resplendent
gore
*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
*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
*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
*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
*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
*National*
An illuminating and grisly look at the work of hacksaw-wielding
surgeons of the 19th century
*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
*Nature*
Bloody, visceral, and fascinating
*Entertainment Weekly*
A lively read, constantly entertaining ... Fitzharris is an
unapologetic showman. I imagine her as a ringmaster, inviting us to
roll up and read if we dare
*The National*
A brilliant and gripping account of the almost unimaginable horrors
of surgery and post-operative infection before 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
*author of Do No Harm and Admissions*
Engaging and extensively researched ... A riveting and sympathetic
description of one man's quest to help humanity
*Literary Review*
Electric. The drama of Lister's mission to shape modern medicine is
as exciting as any novel
*author of Battlefield Britain*
Book of the Week
*The Week*
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!
*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, author of I Contain Multitudes*
An absolutely fascinating and grisly read that vividly brings to
life the world of the Victorian operating theatre
*author of Bedlam and Necropolis*
Fitzharris slices into medical history with this excellent
biography of Joseph Lister, the 19th-century "hero of surgery." ...
She infuses her thoughtful and finely crafted examination of this
revolution with the same sense of wonder and compassion Lister
himself brought to his patients, colleagues, and students
*Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)*
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 horror 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
*bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to
Eternity*
Fascinating and shocking ... [Fitzharris] 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 (Starred Review)*
The Butchering Art, with its attention to detail, its admiration
for its subject and its unflinching sympathy for the suffering,
proposes a causal chain - running through the history of human
sickness and not yet at its end - in which Lister forms a strong
and vital link
*London Review of Books*
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