The Butchering Art

Fitzharris’s book is a page-turner that takes readers into the macabre operating theaters of the Victorian era, when surgeons rarely washed their hands or cleaned their scalpels, anesthesia did not exist, and the “best” surgeons were simply those who worked the fastest.

Joseph Lister’s effort to convince the world of the merits of antisepsis is a true underdog story in which the stakes could not have been higher. 

Of all the books I’ve used in research for my book, this one was my favorite. While this non-fiction work details the life of Dr. Lister, who lived later in the 19th century, it gives a view of what a hospital was like before germs were discovered. Unwashed hands, soiled sheets, bloodied aprons, and surgical instruments—Dr. Fitzharris spares no details in her riveting book. A hospital was a stepstone to the grave. Medical students and doctors caught infections and died. Butchering Art made the world of 19th-century medicine so vivid to my imagination that I was able to write… show more.

While purporting to be a book about the horrors of Victorian surgery, The Butchering Art is actually a fascinating exploration into the innovation of hygienic practices and antisepsis as pioneered by Joseph Lister. Among his other achievements, Lister invented carbolic spray, which maintained disinfection over the open cavity of the patient during surgery. With germ theory quite new, many in the medical profession questioned the need for hand washing and special clothing to prevent post-operative infection, which truly did make Victorian surgery frightening.