Scan barcode
A review by hanarama
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
dark
informative
medium-paced
4.0
A well written narrative of Dr. Joseph Lister, the man that successfully introduced hand washing and anti-septic practices to Western medicine.
Fitzharris provides a lot of historical insight into Victorian medical practices, highlighting how gruesome and ineffectual they often were before germ theory was fully accepted and understood. She presents the narrative in an interesting and easy to follow manner, giving the reader enough background to understand Lister's impact without bogging down the biographical aspects.
I wonder if there was some information left out of the narrative though. It's well known now that racial minorities and women were often treated with experimental procedures against their will. The book doesn't make it clear if Lister also did this, though he was known to have better bedside manner and empathy towards his patients for the time. I would have liked for this topic to have been explored more so that we could see how Lister fit into this terrible aspect of medical history.
Fitzharris provides a lot of historical insight into Victorian medical practices, highlighting how gruesome and ineffectual they often were before germ theory was fully accepted and understood. She presents the narrative in an interesting and easy to follow manner, giving the reader enough background to understand Lister's impact without bogging down the biographical aspects.
I wonder if there was some information left out of the narrative though. It's well known now that racial minorities and women were often treated with experimental procedures against their will. The book doesn't make it clear if Lister also did this, though he was known to have better bedside manner and empathy towards his patients for the time. I would have liked for this topic to have been explored more so that we could see how Lister fit into this terrible aspect of medical history.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Animal death, Cancer, and Blood