Dr. Mutter's Marvels

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A mesmerizing biography of a brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who transformed American surgery and founded a renowned museum of medical oddities. Imagine undergoing surgery without anesthesia, performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools or wash his hands. This was the medical landscape when Thomas Dent Mütter began his groundbreaking career as a plastic surgeon in mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Despite dying at just forty-eight, Mütter was a daring innovator who introduced ether as anesthesia, advocated for sterilization of surgical instruments, and promoted a compassion-based approach to treating the severely deformed, challenging the prevailing attitudes of his time. Charismatic and flamboyant, Mütter wore pink silk suits in the operating room, added an umlaut to his name for flair, and collected medical oddities that later formed the core of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum. Award-winning writer Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz vividly captures how Mütter's work established Philadelphia as a hub for medical innovation, despite fierce opposition from rivals like Charles D. Meigs, who opposed Mütter's modern views. This narrative intertwines a striking portrayal of nineteenth-century medicine with the captivating biography of a man likened to the "P.T. Barnum of the surgery room."