hireMedical | The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery

The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore
	Our Price: N/A (Hardcover) 9 new, 26 used (from $12.15)
Publisher: Broadway (9/13/2005) ISBN: 0767916522 Edition: 1 Hardcover: 352 pages Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches Average Customer Review: based on 12 reviews.
When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his gothic horror story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he based the house of the genial doctor-turned-fiend on the home of John Hunter. The choice was understandable, for Hunter was both widely acclaimed and greatly feared. � From humble origins, John Hunter rose to become the most famous anatomist and surgeon of the eighteenth century. In an age when operations were crude, extremely painful, and often fatal, he rejected medieval traditions to forge a revolution in surgery founded on pioneering scientific experiments. Using the knowledge he gained from countless human dissections, Hunter worked to improve medical care for both the poorest and the best-known figures of the era�including Sir Joshua Reynolds and the young Lord Byron. � An insatiable student of all life-forms, Hunter was also an expert naturalist. He kept exotic creatures in his country menagerie and dissected the first animals brought back by Captain Cook from Australia. Ultimately his research led him to expound highly controversial views on the age of the earth, as well as equally heretical beliefs on the origins of life more than sixty years before Darwin published his famous theory. � Although a central figure of the Enlightenment, Hunter�s tireless quest for human corpses immersed him deep in the sinister world of body snatching. He paid exorbitant sums for stolen cadavers and even plotted successfully to steal the body of Charles Byrne, famous in his day as the �Irish giant.� � In The Knife Man, Wendy Moore unveils John Hunter�s murky and macabre world�a world characterized by public hangings, secret expeditions to dank churchyards, and gruesome human dissections in pungent attic rooms. This is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable pioneer and his determined struggle to haul surgery out of the realms of meaningless superstitious ritual and into the dawn of modern medicine.

Customer Reviews
Morbid But Supremely Fascinating Morbidly fascinating, this book is great, just hands-down great. Not only presents a fully realized portrait of fascinating man, but recaptures an entire era (Georgian England). What happens after the death of the subject (to his books and papers, to his museum of anatomical curiosities) reads like a short story by Borges or Kafka. Will be thinking about this one for days, maybe years.

Moore sets the standard for popular biography - John Hunter's story is presented in all its amazing and morally ambiguous glory! (This review is from the softcover version of the same book) I teach anatomy and the history of medicine at a U.S. medical school and had this book on my to-do list for a long time. Now that I've read it, I'm kicking myself for not getting it sooner. First, John Hunter should be a household name 3 times over for the amazing experimental work that he conducted in the late 1700's. I have been familiar with him for several years and had lapsed into thinking I had him categorized until I read this remarkably brief biography and realized that I had barely scratched the surface. In addition to revolutionizing surgery, medical examination, experimental biology, comparative anatomy, and medical education, John Hunter steered the history of science down a path of skeptical inquiry that it was sadly lacking. Secondly, Wendy Moore presents Hunter in his true complexity. We can cheer the ill-mannered maverick of medicine as he mercilessly replaces ignorance with hard-won experience; but we have a harder time reconciling our hero with the grave-robbing criminal that was an equally-valid aspect of John Hunter. This biography is concise (which must have been very difficult for the author to accomplish) and written in a conversational tone. It neither sides with or against Hunter (although it does take some well-warranted stabs at his petty detractors) and situates him in the context of the people and places that surrounded him, which makes his accomplishments even more amazing. This book will be a compulsive read to any curious person, and EVERY medical and science student would benefit from reading this excellent biography. HIGHLY recommended!

A Must read for Health Care Providers! An interesting and historical view of one very early practicitioner who realized the importance of cleanliness. Very well written and interesting for anyone intersted in history, medicine and surgery; or just a great read!

Compelling look at an extraordinary man A thorough, very well researched biographical account of the Georgian surgeon/naturalist/anatomist/educator John Hunter. I think anyone, after reading this book, will be amazed that Hunter's name is not more commonplace today. He was a revolutionary within surgery and medicine and worked with and trained others who shaped medicine in the U.S. and elsewhere. For anyone interested in history, science, or medicine, this is a valuable and interesting book to read. Wendy Miller obviously went to great lengths to research the subject matter for this book and is able to present what at least to the less informed reader seems to be a genuine account of Hunter's life. While she is obviously enamored with Hunter's ingenuity and approach to his craft, Miller also points out the many places where his theories were incorrect and where he obeyed convention, albeit incorrect, rather than pressing forward with his hypothesis driven approach. Each chapter of the book is titled after some artifact or preparation of Hunter's and describes the situation regarding it's creation or acquisition by Hunter. While this makes each chapter somewhat a story in itself, it is at times difficult to follow the events of Hunter's life as they are not presented chronologically. A timeline is at the back of the book, but often chapters overlap by ~5 years, such that the beginning of a new chapter must revert back 5 years before the end of the preceding chapter. This is effective in spots, as Hunter's diverse interests are presented one by one rather than in parallel with his other concurrent academic pursuits, but the structure sometimes complicates descriptions of Hunter's interpersonal relationships. Overall, this is a very well done book and should be read by anyone interested in science, history, or medicine. It is regrettable that Hunter is not more widely appreciated, but this fact makes the book all the more amazing/valuable.

Scientific medicine is a new thing John Hunter was one of the champions who introduced scientific methods to medicine over the opposition of those who valued ideology over evidence. He fought this battle only about 225 years ago when doctors often prescribed bloodletting. John Hunter paid attention to evidence that it was sometimes best to leave gunshot wounds untreated rather than apply the remedies physicians often applied at that time. This book is fascinating and is written very well. I was shocked to learn how primitive medicine was only 225 years ago. Our recent progress under the scientific approach has been astounding. John Hunter's personal story was also a very dramatic rise from poverty to recognition as his nation's leading surgeon and physician.