This book is perfect for those interested in medical history and the evolution of medical treatments. Fitzharris provides a detailed account of Joseph Lister's groundbreaking discovery of antiseptics as a solution to germ-based infections in surgery, changing the face of medicine forever. Readers will be transported back to the grisly world of Victorian surgery, and gain a new appreciation for our modern medical practices.

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• Wellcome Book Prize Nominee for Longlist (2018)
• PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award (2018)
• Wolfson History Prize Nominee for Shortlist (2018)
• Society of Midland Authors Award Nominee for Adult Nonfiction (2018)

Victorian operating theatres were known as 'gateways of death', Fitzharris reminds us, since half of those who underwent surgery didn't survive the experience. This was an era when a broken leg could lead to amputation, when surgeons often lacked university degrees, and were still known to ransack cemeteries to find cadavers. While the discovery of anaesthesia somewhat lessened the misery for patients, ironically it led to more deaths, as surgeons took greater risks. In squalid, overcrowded hospitals, doctors remained baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high.At a time when surgery couldn't have been more dangerous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: Joseph Lister, a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon. By making the audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection - and could be treated with antiseptics - he changed the history of medicine forever.With a novelist's eye for detail, Fitzharris brilliantly conjures up the grisly world of Victorian surgery, revealing how one of Britain's greatest medical minds finally brought centuries of savagery, sawing and gangrene to an end.

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