Blood and Guts

October 26, 2009
Glove up and dive in to what Hollingham describes as a “whistle-stop tour” of a gruesome and fascinating field. The BBC journalist and author (How to Clone the Perfect Blonde
) is a deft storyteller who probably never met a dry fact he couldn't infuse with juicy detail. But there's more here than the drive, energy and bravery of medical pioneers, both doctors and patients, from Galen treating gladiators in the second century B.C.E. to Stuart Carter, the first person to have electrical brain implants to treat Parkinson's disease. Hollingham gives us a tribute not only to saving lives but to making them better. Still, it's the missteps that remind us of the human fallibility of even the greatest doctors. “ Liston's operations were messy, bloody and traumatic,” Hollingham writes of Britain's most famous 19th-century surgeon, describing a procedure in which Liston accidentally lopped off an assistant's fingers. “The patient died of infection, as did the assistant, and an observer died of shock. It was the only operation in surgical history with a 300 percent mortality rate.” What better medical history than one that recounts both successes and failures with honesty and gratitude. 16 pages of b&w photos.

October 15, 2009
An anecdote-laden history of surgery based on a five-part BBC TV series also titled Blood and Guts.

Popular-science writer Hollingham (How to Clone the Perfect Blonde: Making Fantasies Come True with Cutting-edge Science, 2003) covers the same ground as the series, but in a different sequence. He opens with a gory leg amputation performed without anesthesia in just 30 seconds by Robert Liston in 1842. He then gives a nod to the anatomy-revealing work of Galen and Vesalius before turning his attention back to the 19th century and the discovery of ether and chloroform, Ignaz Semmelweis's stress on cleanliness and Joseph Lister's techniques for sterilization. The chapter on the heart describes early surgery on beating hearts, the first heart-lung machines and the race to perform the first heart transplant, won by Christiaan Barnard in 1967. Hollingham hits his stride with transplantation, describing the disastrous results of inserting teeth pulled from syphilitic prostitutes into the gums of 18th-century gentry, a curious modern-day on-again, off-again hand transplant and Alexis Carrel's bizarre transplantation experiments with animals. Crude attempts to replace missing noses in 16th-century Italy launch the author's discussion of reconstructive surgery, a field whose modern era began with the innovative work of British surgeons at Queens Hospital in World War I and advanced rapidly in World War II. Finally, the author turns to the brain, where the spotlight is shared by the brilliant surgeon Harvey Cushing and the misguided Walter Freeman, who was not a surgeon but who boldly performed thousands of lobotomies on mental patients.

Hollingham makes no attempt to provide a complete history of surgery, but he offers a quick, entertaining read filled with operating-room dramas that end in disaster or triumph and a wide variety of heroes and villains. One warning: This is not for the squeamish.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 23, 2009
Trained as a physician, British science journalist Hollingham (How To Clone the Perfect Blonde) discusses the developments that made surgery and survival from surgery possible. These include a developed understanding of anatomy and advances in anesthesia and antiseptic techniques. He also focuses on the development of heart surgery, organ transplantation, plastic surgery, and neurosurgery. Hollingham tells his story through brief biographies of operating room heroes and villains. Readers will cringe at tales of doctors who resisted Ignaz Semmelweiss and Joseph Lister's antiseptic measures that demonstrably saved lives in maternity and surgical wards or the knife-happy Walter Freeman who performed countless lobotomies from 1946 to 1960. Uplifting stories include the imagination and determination of the first heart surgeons, the compassionate British physician who advanced plastic surgery for the wounded of World War I, and the dedicated researchers who still struggle to perfect organ transplants and cures for brain-based diseases. Verdict This is a lively and provocative history of surgical advances that will make each reader grateful to be alive in the 21st century. A helpful time line and suggestions for further reading are appended.-Kathy Arsenault, St. Petersburg, FL

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.