Under the Knife
A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
St. Martin's Press · Print & ebook · October 2, 2018
Surgeon Arnold van de Laar uses his own experience and expertise to tell this engrossing history of surgery through 28 famous operations—from Louis XIV and Einstein to JFK and Houdini.
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- Who it’s for
- A brisk, readable tour of surgery’s long, strange evolution.
- Themes
- medical history, surgery, medical innovation
- Pacing
- Steady
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Surgeon Arnold van de Laar uses his own experience and expertise to tell this engrossing history of surgery through 28 famous operations—from Louis XIV and Einstein to JFK and Houdini. From the story of the desperate man from seventeenth-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room.
Continue reading
What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery? With stories spanning the dark centuries of bloodletting and amputations without anaesthetic through today's sterile, high-tech operating rooms, Under the Knife is both a rich cultural history, and a modern anatomy class for us all.
Inside Surgery
A brisk, readable tour of surgery’s long, strange evolution.
Come here for
- clean, accessible medical history
- conversation-ready surgical anecdotes
Expect
- clear explanation without heavy jargon
- chapter-by-chapter variety
Where it sits
| Medical History | 86% |
|---|---|
| General Surgery | 56% |
| History of Science | 37% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Social History
- Medical History
- General Surgery
- Authors
- Arnold van de Laar
- Publisher
- St. Martin's Press
- Published
- October 2, 2018
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- medical history · surgery · medical innovation
- Reading lane
- Social History