The Butchering Art

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a fairly interesting book about Joseph Lister who proselytized the use of antiseptics in surgery. As a necessity there was a lot of talk of blood, pus, and gore so maybe don't read soon after eating. There isn't a lot of talk of his personal life, especially after he got married. I did appreciate that it stuck close to the subject without a lot of sidetracking. What amazed me most was the response of other doctors who refused to change their ways because it meant admitting they were the cause of all the infections. The jacket art is amazing and is half the reason I read this.

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a wound could heal in one of two ways.  The ideal situation was if a wound healed by "first intention: a term used by surgeon to denote the reuniting of the two sides with minimal inflammation and suppuration ( formation of pus).  Put simply, the wound healed cleanly, or "sweetly" to use a term of the period.  Alternately, a wound might heal by "second intention" through the development of new granulations or scar tissue--a prolonged process that was frequently accompanied by both inflammation and suppuration.  Wounds that healed by second intention were more likely to become infected or "sour".