Dr Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine - Hardcover

Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1592408702 ISBN 13: 9781592408702

Publisher: Gotham Books, 2015

Synopsis

A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country’s most famous museum of medical oddities

Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his toolsor even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the middle of the nineteenth century.

Although he died at just forty-eight, Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time.

Brilliant, outspoken, and brazenly handsome, Mütter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added anumlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum.

Award-winning writer Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mütter’s efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovationdespite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. (Foremost among them: Charles D. Meigs, an influential obstetrician who loathed Mütter’s "overly" modern medical opinions.) In the narrative spirit ofThe Devil in the White City, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels interweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the "P. T. Barnum of the surgery room."

About this title

About the Authors

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is an award-winning writer of Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slamand popular touring poet and spoken word performer. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is an award-winning writer of Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slamand popular touring poet and spoken word performer. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gotham Books
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1592408702
• ISBN 13: 9781592408702
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 372