Reviews with content warning for Medical content - The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris has become a must-read author for me. I read her second book, The Facemaker, first, which was one of the best books I read last year. I highly anticipate anything else she comes out with, should she publish more in the future!

Her writing reads, if not like fiction, as smoothly as a novel in most places. I grew up hearing medical terms around the dinner table, as my dad is a family physician, so I may have a head start on other readers - but there were few times that I had to stop to re-read a section or look up a term. Fitzharris defines concepts well for the layman. Most of the times I had to re-read anything were quotes using antiquated jargon.

I remember learning about pasteurization in school, and I, as many today, take for granted all of the antiseptic steps we go through today with even just treating scrapes. But learning about the process we went through to get there and about the lives of these individuals brings so much more perspective! I knew roughly the timeline for transitioning from miasma to germ theory, but reading in more detail about how we figured it out and the reactions of the medical community is fascinating and just….awe-inspiring.

Content Warnings