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sephipiderwitch's review against another edition
5.0
Dr. Mutter's Marvels is an utterly fascinating story about one of the early pioneers of modern medicine and surgery, Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter. He was flamboyant in his dress from a very young age and it carried through and into his career as a brilliant surgeon where he sported his expensive and colorful suits into the operating rooms.
It was a time when surgeries were performed without anesthesia or sanitation. One had to be more afraid of dying of an ailment or so deformed that one might as well die to go under the knife at this time. Surgeries were performed before an audience as the patient was held down screaming as they were sliced open. The surgeon wore the same clothes throughout the entire day and all the surgeries and the surgical equipment not even wiped clean. And then the patient, if they survived, was sent home immediately after the surgery.
One of the early "strange" notions that Mutter had was a deep compassion for his patients. He would spend great amounts of time with them going over every phase of what he was going to do, including the level of pain they would be forced to endure. His specialty was reconstructing deformed or badly injured people, burn victims, serious birth defects like cleft palates,
The author presents Dr. Mutter with all his flamboyancy, his compassion and his innovative thinking in a highly readable manner. This was the first I had ever heard of the man. Father of plastic surgery, making possible for monsters to again walk out in the light of day. Pioneer in the concept of sanitation in surgery and a champion to his patients as he fought for and got wards for them to recover in after surgery, where they could be ministered to, watched over and their wounds properly dressed to speed healing.
He was also a collector of unique and bizarre specimens. Body parts, whole bodies, organs, bones, often paying huge sums to take them off the side show network to be housed in his lab. The book is full of illustrations, pictures and quotes from Mutter and those that were part of his time and world. This added to my liking of the book as I have always had a fondness for illustrated books.
His approach in teaching was also unique of the times as he engaged his students in discussions and problem solving. At a time when all others simply lectured to a silent audience. As such, his classes were sought out and he became a favorite among the student body. This, coupled with his compassionate approach to healing brought the school a tidal wave of fame and income.
He was also one of the early supporters of anesthesia, for which he received much derision from his contemporaries. They believed that a patient needed to remain awake and be an active participant in their surgery. That anesthesia would increase the mortality rate of patients, and was against God's will. Mutter not only saw it as an opportunity to minimize the pain of surgery, but also the advantage it would allow in longer surgeries that weren't possible without such a discovery. He even devoted large amounts of time in developing a stabler and more consistent ether mixture as well as the mask for administering it.
Dr. Mutter had far too little time on this earth. He had been plagued by a "weak disposition" since childhood and it carried through into his adulthood and career. But, what he accomplished in his short time was remarkable. His students numbered some of the pioneers in medicine from that time, including the first Surgeon General.
Dr. Mutter's Marvels is an excellent and fascinating read in the history of surgery, teaching and the brilliant and colorful man who changed the entire landscape with each step. And Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz does a stellar job in bringing this forgotten figure back into the limelight he deserves.
SephiPiderWitch
http://sephipiderwitch.com/dr-mutters-marvels-by-cristin-okeefe-aptowicz/
April 2015
It was a time when surgeries were performed without anesthesia or sanitation. One had to be more afraid of dying of an ailment or so deformed that one might as well die to go under the knife at this time. Surgeries were performed before an audience as the patient was held down screaming as they were sliced open. The surgeon wore the same clothes throughout the entire day and all the surgeries and the surgical equipment not even wiped clean. And then the patient, if they survived, was sent home immediately after the surgery.
One of the early "strange" notions that Mutter had was a deep compassion for his patients. He would spend great amounts of time with them going over every phase of what he was going to do, including the level of pain they would be forced to endure. His specialty was reconstructing deformed or badly injured people, burn victims, serious birth defects like cleft palates,
The author presents Dr. Mutter with all his flamboyancy, his compassion and his innovative thinking in a highly readable manner. This was the first I had ever heard of the man. Father of plastic surgery, making possible for monsters to again walk out in the light of day. Pioneer in the concept of sanitation in surgery and a champion to his patients as he fought for and got wards for them to recover in after surgery, where they could be ministered to, watched over and their wounds properly dressed to speed healing.
He was also a collector of unique and bizarre specimens. Body parts, whole bodies, organs, bones, often paying huge sums to take them off the side show network to be housed in his lab. The book is full of illustrations, pictures and quotes from Mutter and those that were part of his time and world. This added to my liking of the book as I have always had a fondness for illustrated books.
His approach in teaching was also unique of the times as he engaged his students in discussions and problem solving. At a time when all others simply lectured to a silent audience. As such, his classes were sought out and he became a favorite among the student body. This, coupled with his compassionate approach to healing brought the school a tidal wave of fame and income.
He was also one of the early supporters of anesthesia, for which he received much derision from his contemporaries. They believed that a patient needed to remain awake and be an active participant in their surgery. That anesthesia would increase the mortality rate of patients, and was against God's will. Mutter not only saw it as an opportunity to minimize the pain of surgery, but also the advantage it would allow in longer surgeries that weren't possible without such a discovery. He even devoted large amounts of time in developing a stabler and more consistent ether mixture as well as the mask for administering it.
Dr. Mutter had far too little time on this earth. He had been plagued by a "weak disposition" since childhood and it carried through into his adulthood and career. But, what he accomplished in his short time was remarkable. His students numbered some of the pioneers in medicine from that time, including the first Surgeon General.
Dr. Mutter's Marvels is an excellent and fascinating read in the history of surgery, teaching and the brilliant and colorful man who changed the entire landscape with each step. And Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz does a stellar job in bringing this forgotten figure back into the limelight he deserves.
SephiPiderWitch
http://sephipiderwitch.com/dr-mutters-marvels-by-cristin-okeefe-aptowicz/
April 2015
lagobond's review against another edition
2.0
I'm so intrigued with this story, but the writing is so detached, disjointed, amateurish* and overwrought that I just can't force myself to keep reading. Too bad.
* Why on Earth would a writer translate "Madame Dimanche" as "the Widow Sunday?"
* Why on Earth would a writer translate "Madame Dimanche" as "the Widow Sunday?"
tanyagold's review against another edition
4.0
Read this to to get a sense of mid-1800s medical developments in the US, and to learn about the fascinating man whose collection became Philadelphia's Mütter museum.
ms_aprilvincent's review against another edition
5.0
4.5
-audiobook-
The Mütter Museum has been on my bucket list since I was a pre-adult watching The Mummy Roadshow on the National Geographic Channel because it's just an obvious choice for me. So yeah, lemme read this book.
Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter was a teaching surgeon who cared about his patients and believed in stuff like aftercare and good hygiene. He taught at the Jefferson College in Philadelphia and was a straight up guy who loved his job and was really nice to boot.
Enter Dr. Charles D. Meigs, the villain of this piece, also a teacher at Jefferson, whose specialty was obstetrics. This is a dude who didn't believe in germs and said stuff like, "Women deserve to feel pain during childbirth because of that apple so you put that anesthesia away, sir." (paraphrased)
We hate him.
But Mütter! He likes bright clothes and is an 18th century pioneer of plastic surgery who closes cleft palates and does skin grafts on burn victims (I already knew about this technique, called Mütter's flap, because of who I am as a person). He collects medical specimens, not to create a freak show, but to provide educational aids that will encourage medical students to view patients as people instead of individual maladies.
The title of this book implies that it's going to be about the stuff that's in the museum, but it's not, and that's why I took off a half point--for disappointment.
However, I got super into this book, listening to the whole thing in two days and being absolutely giddy over it. I highly recommend it to people who like medical history, or American history, or weird stuff, or rivalries, or whatever: read it; it's great.
-audiobook-
The Mütter Museum has been on my bucket list since I was a pre-adult watching The Mummy Roadshow on the National Geographic Channel because it's just an obvious choice for me. So yeah, lemme read this book.
Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter was a teaching surgeon who cared about his patients and believed in stuff like aftercare and good hygiene. He taught at the Jefferson College in Philadelphia and was a straight up guy who loved his job and was really nice to boot.
Enter Dr. Charles D. Meigs, the villain of this piece, also a teacher at Jefferson, whose specialty was obstetrics. This is a dude who didn't believe in germs and said stuff like, "Women deserve to feel pain during childbirth because of that apple so you put that anesthesia away, sir." (paraphrased)
We hate him.
But Mütter! He likes bright clothes and is an 18th century pioneer of plastic surgery who closes cleft palates and does skin grafts on burn victims (I already knew about this technique, called Mütter's flap, because of who I am as a person). He collects medical specimens, not to create a freak show, but to provide educational aids that will encourage medical students to view patients as people instead of individual maladies.
The title of this book implies that it's going to be about the stuff that's in the museum, but it's not, and that's why I took off a half point--for disappointment.
However, I got super into this book, listening to the whole thing in two days and being absolutely giddy over it. I highly recommend it to people who like medical history, or American history, or weird stuff, or rivalries, or whatever: read it; it's great.
anninme's review against another edition
3.0
The first half was great. the 19th century surgery information was interesting. The end wasn't as good, ended up skimming it.
brgossard's review against another edition
4.0
This book jumped around in time so it sometimes got a little confusing in the timeline of Dr. Mütter’s life. This museum is by far my favorite I’ve ever been to, so it was fascinating to learn about the man who created it.
genizah's review against another edition
2.0
Given to extended flights of hagiography, so that the sections about general medical history end up being much more interesting than the parts about Mutter. The author also has an extremely irritating tendency to end sections with some variation of "little did he know..." The audiobook reader was serviceable.
misskrislm's review against another edition
3.0
I was expecting a very different book, but was not displeased with what I received. I was led to believe this was going to be a book about the marvels in Dr. Mutter's collection, the same marvels I have seen in the Mutter Museum here in Philadelphia. Instead, I received an audiobook entirely about the life, times, work, and death of Dr. Mutter himself (extremely well researched).