In an era when bloodletting was considered a cure for everything from colds to smallpox, surgeon John Hunter was a medical innovator, an eccentric, and the person to whom anyone who has ever had surgery probably owes his or her life. In this sensational and macabre story, we meet the surgeon who counted not only luminaries Benjamin Franklin, Lord Byron, Adam Smith, and Thomas Gainsborough among his patients but also "resurrection men" among his close acquaintances. A captivating portrait of his ruthless devotion to uncovering the secrets of the human body, and the extraordinary lengths to which he went to do so--including body snatching, performing pioneering medical experiments, and infecting himself with venereal disease--this rich historical narrative at last acknowledges this fascinating man and the debt we owe him today.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

A hand in everything:

The surgeons of the 18th century faced a dilemma that would tie any of today's bioethicists into a pretzel shape.
They had inherited a crude, limited, unsystematic and usually ineffective technique from medieval or even classical times, but to get to today's comprehensive, delicate and scientific methods they had to experiment on the living and the dead.
The question of experimenting on the living presents obvious difficulties, but in some ways experimenting on the dead was an even more... more info

Intriguing, Interesting...an Amazing Read:

Not a quick, easy read, but an interesting and intriguing read to see how far all medicine, especially surgery, has come. The story begins and is largely finished even before handwashing was known to be a preventative of disease and infection. The reader is left to wonder how far medicine and surgery will progress in the next 300 years and how doctors,surgeons and readers of that day will look back on what we consider "state of the art" medicine today.
(When discussing this book at recent book club... more info

A Medical Pioneer:

John Hunter was a blunt, irascible sort who was not disposed to accept established opinions on health and the functionings of the human body. Living in London during the 18th century, he quickly developed a reputation as an iconoclast who rejected tradition and sought to learn as much as he could about human anatomy. This necessitated a strong stomach and a willingness to flout the law. Since dissecting a human body was against the law, Hunter and others who wished to do so had to be willing to deal with... more info

Surgery In The Age of Samuel Johnson (from Ahadada Books):

Funny how I'd always confused John Hunter with his brother William whose reputation as a prig more concerned with titles and position than with surgery filtered down to me through histories of science and the times that I'd read. And of course I'd come across the Hunter name in connection with lurid tales of body snatching and the gut-dabbling "Jack Tearguts" of Blake's "An Island In The Moon," which gives us the verbal equivalent of a Gillray print. Now Wendy Moore has brought clarity to this subject, and... more info

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