Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations

Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations

<p><b>Surgeon Arnold van de Laar uses his own experience and expertise to tell this engrossing </b><b>history of surgery through 28 famous operations—from Louis XIV and Einstein to JFK and </b><b>Houdini.</b></p><p>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, <i>Under the Knife</i> offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room.</p><p>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?</p><p>With stories spanning the dark centuries of bloodletting and amputations without anaesthetic through today's sterile, high-tech operating rooms, <i>Under the Knife</i> is both a rich cultural history, and a modern anatomy class for us all.</p>