Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • BJGP LIFE
  • MORE
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Librarian information
    • Resilience
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers

User menu

  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
British Journal of General Practice
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in
  • Follow bjgp on Twitter
  • Visit bjgp on Facebook
  • Blog
  • Listen to BJGP podcast
  • Subscribe BJGP on YouTube
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
British Journal of General Practice

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • BJGP LIFE
  • MORE
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Librarian information
    • Resilience
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
Life & Times

Books: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

Transforming the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

Martin Edwards
British Journal of General Practice 2018; 68 (669): 192. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X695585
Martin Edwards
Retired GP and medical historian.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading
Lindsey Fitzharris Allen Lane, 2017, HB, 304pp, £16.99, 978-0241262498
Figure

From the start, Lindsey Fitzharris’s account of the life and times of surgeon Joseph Lister gleefully evokes the smells, sights, and sounds of mid-nineteenth century medicine. Surgeons in bloodied aprons used instruments still filthy from previous operations to perform amputations in seconds, slicing through testicles and assistants’ fingers in their haste.

Little wonder that operating theatres were known as ‘gateways of death’ as half of those undergoing surgery did not live to tell the tale. A broken leg could lead to amputation and surgeons were still pillaging cemeteries to obtain cadavers.

The advent of anaesthesia in the 1840s offered surgeons the opportunity to undertake longer, more complex operations, but outcomes remained appalling due to the postoperative suppuration that Fitzharris vividly describes. Smells outside hospitals feature prominently too, as Fitzharris relates the career progression of Quaker surgeon Joseph Lister through the reeking Victorian streets of London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

Lister developed a technique of antiseptic surgery, using carbolic acid to disinfect wounds during and after surgery. He constantly worked to refine his carbolic spray device, which surrounded the operation site with an antiseptic mist, and his irrigation techniques. Contemporaries were initially sceptical (doctors were mystified why infections kept the death rate so high) but Lister was tireless in promoting his system, which soon became widely accepted and ultimately resulted in Lister’s ennoblement.

Some might find the book’s American spelling a little irksome, and this highly graphic account of the smells of hospital wards, the sounds of agonised patients, and the sights of the ‘Butchering Art’ of surgery might have benefited from a few pictures. Fitzharris occasionally tends towards an uncritical account of Lister, and not all historians would accept her implication that Lister, with his enthusiasm for microscopy, pre-empted the discovery of germ theory. But Fitzharris is a medical historian with a deep knowledge of her subject, and her account is fun, fascinating, easy to read, and assumes no prior historical knowledge. It deserves a place by the bedside of any clinician interested in a glorious pus-and- blood-filled romp through this aspect of the history of their profession.

Footnotes

  • The Butchering Art is on the long list for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize. The winner will be chosen and announced at the end of April: https://wellcomebookprize.org/book/butchering-art.

  • © British Journal of General Practice 2018
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

In this issue

British Journal of General Practice: 68 (669)
British Journal of General Practice
Vol. 68, Issue 669
April 2018
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Download PDF
Download PowerPoint
Article Alerts
Or,
sign in or create an account with your email address
Email Article

Thank you for recommending British Journal of General Practice.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person to whom you are recommending the page knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Books: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from British Journal of General Practice
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from British Journal of General Practice.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Books: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
Martin Edwards
British Journal of General Practice 2018; 68 (669): 192. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp18X695585

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
Books: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
Martin Edwards
British Journal of General Practice 2018; 68 (669): 192. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp18X695585
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Jump to section

  • Top
  • Article
    • Footnotes
  • Figures & Data
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF

More in this TOC Section

  • Where I end and you begin: additional roles in British general practice
  • Yonder #100: Nasal sprays, obstetric ultrasound, binge eating disorder, and emergency departments
  • Virtuoso general practice
Show more Life & Times

Related Articles

Cited By...

Intended for Healthcare Professionals

BJGP Life

BJGP Open

 

@BJGPjournal's Likes on Twitter

 
 

British Journal of General Practice

NAVIGATE

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • All Issues
  • Online First
  • Authors & reviewers

RCGP

  • BJGP for RCGP members
  • BJGP Open
  • RCGP eLearning
  • InnovAiT Journal
  • Jobs and careers

MY ACCOUNT

  • RCGP members' login
  • Subscriber login
  • Activate subscription
  • Terms and conditions

NEWS AND UPDATES

  • About BJGP
  • Alerts
  • RSS feeds
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

AUTHORS & REVIEWERS

  • Submit an article
  • Writing for BJGP: research
  • Writing for BJGP: other sections
  • BJGP editorial process & policies
  • BJGP ethical guidelines
  • Peer review for BJGP

CUSTOMER SERVICES

  • Advertising
  • Contact subscription agent
  • Copyright
  • Librarian information

CONTRIBUTE

  • BJGP Life
  • eLetters
  • Feedback

CONTACT US

BJGP Journal Office
RCGP
30 Euston Square
London NW1 2FB
Tel: +44 (0)20 3188 7400
Email: journal@rcgp.org.uk

British Journal of General Practice is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners
© 2022 British Journal of General Practice

Print ISSN: 0960-1643
Online ISSN: 1478-5242