Hollingham makes no attempt to provide a complete history of surgery, but he offers a quick, entertaining read filled with...
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.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-57546-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2009
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0684813785
Page Count: 932
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986
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