Price: $17.00 - $11.69
(as of Sep 30, 2024 12:17:56 UTC – Details)
A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country’s most famous museum of medical oddities
Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia, performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools—or even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the mid-nineteenth century.
Although he died at just forty-eight, Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. Brilliant, outspoken, and brazenly handsome, Mütter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia’s renowned Mütter Museum.
Award-winning writer Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mütter’s efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovation—despite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. (Foremost among them: Charles D. Meigs, an influential obstetrician who loathed Mütter’s “overly modern” medical opinions.) In the narrative spirit of The Devil in the White City, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels interweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the “[P. T.] Barnum of the surgery room.”
Publisher : Avery; Reprint edition (September 8, 2015)
Language : English
Paperback : 384 pages
ISBN-10 : 1592409253
ISBN-13 : 978-1592409259
Item Weight : 14.5 ounces
Dimensions : 5.94 x 0.98 x 9.02 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book to be a great, enjoyable read with rich history and detail. They describe the writing style as well-written and entertaining. Readers also mention the book is chock full of fascinating facts. Opinions are mixed on the pacing, with some finding it spellbindingly grotesque and riveting, while others say it gets repetitive.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
