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Literature
Book Review
‘The Knife Man’ not for the faint of heart By Lauren McLane Sentinel Newsroom lmclane@cumberlink.com
I have an almost pathological obsession with medical history. Of my more than 500 books, at least 100 of them relate to science and medicine. I want to know how things work and how people figured out how things work. I am devoutly thankful that blood-letting is no longer the medical go-to for all ailments from poison ivy to cancer, a debt of gratitude I owe to John Hunter, the father of modern surgery. In her book, “The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery,” biographer Wendy Moore eloquently tells the story of John Hunter, the ec-
centric Scot who changed everything we know about medicine and the human body. Hunter, who rose from the ranks of surgeon to physician — in Georgian England, surgeons were mere butchers who cut off diseased limbs willy-nilly, while physicians were more learned and refined (or so they liked to think) — turned the medical establishment on its head.
Autopsies Part of what Hunter did that so horrified the medical community was to perform autopsies, both in an effort to find out why people died, but also to find out how they worked in the first place. In an era when physicians were still basing their work on Galen’s “four humours”
theory of bodily functions, Hunter was a voice crying in the wilderness. “Conflict was inevitable. Hunter’s dogged determination to question accepted doctrines, his fascination with innovation and experiment, and his commitment to founding surgical practice on sound scientific principles were anathema to his fellow surgeons at St. George’s,” Moore writes on page 157. The more he did autopsies, the better he got at them, and the better he got at them, the more people asked him to do them. By doing them, he was able to deduce that digestion occurred not by heat or muscle pulverization but by acid within the stomach itself.
Gritty Moore’s book is not for the faint of heart — or of stomach. It is gritty, gory, and very, very graphic. Hunter was a proponent of vivisection, the practice of performing surgery on living beings (such as dogs) without anesthesia. He was obsessed with the macabre and the bizarre, and kept skeletons and taxidermied animals in his house. He tried to cross-breed various species in an effort to see both what happened and
whether such interbreeding was possible. After fitting his dying brother with a catheter — in itself a relatively new medical procedure — Hunter then spent the last 10 days of his brother’s life dispassionately recording the dying man’s death. Hunter kept copious notes, which were maintained after his death by his assistant at great personal and political price. It wasn’t until nearly a century after his death that his contributions were fully
acknowledged. Immediately after his demise, his enemies paid a muck-racking journalist the then-unheard-of sum of 400 pounds to write a damning biography of the man, which served as the touchstone until the late 19th century. Through the work of Hunter’s students and family and now Moore, his legacy has been preserved, his contributions to science recorded, and his place among the medical greats assured.
COME CELEBRATE WITH BRITTLE BARK Thursday, March 15th 6pm-8:30pm
Instead of “Spring”ing ahead we are taking a step back in time!
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ALIVE
Entertainment in the heart of the midstate
D12 — The Sentinel, Carlisle, Pa. Thursday, March 8, 2012
will take pictures of everyone in costume, post them on our facebook page and $50 Gift Certificate for the winner!
Photo illustration
AND if you don’t want to dress up from a different decade come as yourself and register for door prizes!
Join us as we “Spring” ahead to let you sample what is new for Spring and take a step back in time to offer (March 15th only) our Brittle Bark Grab-n-Go for our original price of $2.75.
Have your friends Like us on facebook and then have them vote for you to win the gift certificate for best
And the evening would not be complete without a CosmoRita! We can’t wait to see your costumes! 39 East Main Street 717-697-6950 www.brittlebark.com
SAVE 40% OFF ONE ITEM Please bring this coupon with you to our Decade Party. One coupon per person. Good for 40% off one non-sale Brittle Bark item of your choice. Offer Expires: Coupon good 6-8:30 pm Thursday, March 15th only .
Sample our Strawberry Shortcake and Lemon Meringue Jubilee Fudge. Register for door prizes! We are pleased to welcome Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop to help us celebrate. To commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic they will have a display of books about the “unsinkable” ship.
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Section D March 8, 2012
INSIDE••• ‘Taste’ Carlisle this weekend at the Chamber’s ‘Savor the Flavor’ event ••• D6
Circus time
your favorite decade: maybe a flapper from the Roaring 20’s, wear a poodle
“The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching and the Birth of Modern Surgery” covers the life of John Hunter, the father of modern surgery.
The Sentinel
Zembo Shrine Circus coming to Harrisburg in mid-March ••• D7