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A review by avreereads
Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
5.0
Quite literally could not put this book down! This is my kind of book! I loved EVERY second of it!
I devoured it in TWO days!
I'm obsessed with studying anything medicine related (especially at the dawn of modern medicine) and I love biographies so naturally I gravitated to this amazing book about a doctor, Thomas Dent Mütter, who was ahead of his time in advocating for hand sanitation and instrument/room sterilization (before antisepses was known) when it was unpopular to do so as they did not know in the mid-nineteenth century what contagions, communicable diseases, and microbes were. (As microorganisms would not be discovered until some decades after Mutter's demise by Louis Pasteur, who proved germ theory, and Nobel Prize-winner Robert Koch who helped establish that these microbes can cause disease.)
Mütter also changed the way all future physicians would interact with their patients when he discovered the "pre-operative" and "post-operative" measures taken to ensure a comfortable patient (well as comfortable as could be while being awake and alert during an operation).
He would familiarize the patient with his "touch" and what instruments he would be using, he walked them through the procedure and informed them what they could expect pain-wise.
Now what was common for post-operative measures in those days was...there was none. Patients would be shoved into a horse drawn cab with freshly stitched, weeping wounds and be jostled to-and-fro on the uneven cobblestone streets (sometimes for a half-a-day's journey) only to be dumped at their homes with no one to monitor their dressings or overall health and so many times the operation would be successful but they'd die once infection set it days after the surgery.
CAUTION: Some spoilers beyond this point in regards to some of Mütter's accomplishments.
So Mütter fought a long, hard battle to set up a "recovery area" for the patients, which took much time and convincing...but eventually such place was created!
He also was well respected by students and faculty alike for his use of the "Socratic Method". And perhaps for what he was best known for, was promoting the use of "ether anesthetic" which he felt was much more humane and realized "why cause patients undo pain and discomfort if there's something that can be done about that?" but again this was well before the popularization of anesthetics as we know it and was given much grief on the subject.
The cool thing is one of his students, Edward Robinson Squibb (of Bristol-Myers Squibb fame), would go on the discover a way to standardize ether administration to patients...seeing as back when his professor, Mütter, used it often times patients would die on the operating table seeing as it was so easy to overdose.
Unfortunately Mütter died at a young 47 years of age (1859) due to complications of a childhood lung illness and inherited gout but not before leaving an indelible impression on the future physicians and surgeons of America and around the world with his investigating into things even when they were wildly unpopular at the time! I really enjoyed reading about this incredible life!
I devoured it in TWO days!
I'm obsessed with studying anything medicine related (especially at the dawn of modern medicine) and I love biographies so naturally I gravitated to this amazing book about a doctor, Thomas Dent Mütter, who was ahead of his time in advocating for hand sanitation and instrument/room sterilization (before antisepses was known) when it was unpopular to do so as they did not know in the mid-nineteenth century what contagions, communicable diseases, and microbes were. (As microorganisms would not be discovered until some decades after Mutter's demise by Louis Pasteur, who proved germ theory, and Nobel Prize-winner Robert Koch who helped establish that these microbes can cause disease.)
Mütter also changed the way all future physicians would interact with their patients when he discovered the "pre-operative" and "post-operative" measures taken to ensure a comfortable patient (well as comfortable as could be while being awake and alert during an operation).
He would familiarize the patient with his "touch" and what instruments he would be using, he walked them through the procedure and informed them what they could expect pain-wise.
Now what was common for post-operative measures in those days was...there was none. Patients would be shoved into a horse drawn cab with freshly stitched, weeping wounds and be jostled to-and-fro on the uneven cobblestone streets (sometimes for a half-a-day's journey) only to be dumped at their homes with no one to monitor their dressings or overall health and so many times the operation would be successful but they'd die once infection set it days after the surgery.
CAUTION: Some spoilers beyond this point in regards to some of Mütter's accomplishments.
So Mütter fought a long, hard battle to set up a "recovery area" for the patients, which took much time and convincing...but eventually such place was created!
He also was well respected by students and faculty alike for his use of the "Socratic Method". And perhaps for what he was best known for, was promoting the use of "ether anesthetic" which he felt was much more humane and realized "why cause patients undo pain and discomfort if there's something that can be done about that?" but again this was well before the popularization of anesthetics as we know it and was given much grief on the subject.
The cool thing is one of his students, Edward Robinson Squibb (of Bristol-Myers Squibb fame), would go on the discover a way to standardize ether administration to patients...seeing as back when his professor, Mütter, used it often times patients would die on the operating table seeing as it was so easy to overdose.
Unfortunately Mütter died at a young 47 years of age (1859) due to complications of a childhood lung illness and inherited gout but not before leaving an indelible impression on the future physicians and surgeons of America and around the world with his investigating into things even when they were wildly unpopular at the time! I really enjoyed reading about this incredible life!