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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
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Editorial reviews
Editors Select, October 2017
I fear that I might be gaining a reputation around here as the editor most likely to geek out over weird medical history books. But if all the books I listen to are as fascinating as this one, I think I might be okay with that. Sparing no gory detail, Lindsey Fitzharris chronicles the history of surgery in the 19th century - which, at the time, was viewed as a last resort, as it often resulted in infection and even death. That is, until a surgeon named Joseph Lister came along with a discovery that paved the way for the modern, safe surgery we have today. If you're looking for a great nonfiction book to send chills down your spine this October, give this one a try. Ralph Lister sets the perfect dramatic tone for this story - and (fun fact) happens to count Joseph Lister among his ancestors! —Sam, Audible Editor
Publisher's summary
The gripping story of how Joseph Lister's antiseptic method changed medicine forever
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These medical pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than their patients' afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
Fitzharris dramatically recounts Lister's discoveries in gripping detail, culminating in his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection - and could be countered by antiseptics. Focusing on the tumultuous period from 1850 to 1875, she introduces us to Lister and his contemporaries - some of them brilliant, some outright criminal - and takes us through the grimy medical schools and dreary hospitals where they learned their art, the deadhouses where they studied anatomy, and the graveyards they occasionally ransacked for cadavers.
Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.
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The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine
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- By: Thomas Helling MD
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb.
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Interesting but weirdly sexist?
- By J-Murphy on 07-19-22
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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Asleep
- The Forgotten Epidemic That Became Medicine’s Greatest Mystery
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims - who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
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Scary, and still unsolved, medical mystery
- By joyce on 12-14-14
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The True History of the Elephant Man
- The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick
- By: Michael Howell, Peter Ford
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.
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Amazing man!
- By Carolyn on 02-05-15
By: Michael Howell, and others
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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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The Moth in the Iron Lung
- A Biography of Polio
- By: Forrest Maready
- Narrated by: Forrest Maready
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating account of the world’s most famous disease - polio - told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard-of disease began paralyzing so many children. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors?
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Root Cause
- By Circlekay1 Gulfport MS on 10-24-19
By: Forrest Maready
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Flu
- The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
- By: Gina Kolata
- Narrated by: Gina Kolata
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.
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overexcited
- By Marilyn on 07-23-03
By: Gina Kolata
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The American Plague
- The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country - and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism," it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.
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Yellow Fever in Memphis
- By Kevin P Key on 04-13-20
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Heart
- A History
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As cardiologist and best-selling author Sandeep Jauhar tells in The Heart, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ.
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Fascinating Insight
- By Ironcharles on 10-27-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
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The Heart Healers
- The Misfits, Mavericks, and Rebels Who Created the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of Our Lives
- By: James Forrester MD
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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At one time heart disease was a death sentence. By the middle of the 20th century, it was killing millions, and, as with the Black Death centuries before, physicians stood helpless. Visionaries, though, had begun to make strides earlier. On September 7, 1895, Ludwig Rehn successfully sutured the heart of a living man with a knife wound to the chest for the first time.
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Great review of the landmark achievements in Cardiology.
- By Trauma NP on 12-14-15
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Final Exam
- A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality
- By: Pauline W. Chen
- Narrated by: Pauline W. Chen
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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When Pauline Chen began medical school 20 years ago, she dreamed of saving lives. What she did not count on was how much death would be a part of her work. Almost immediately, Chen found herself wrestling with medicine's most profound paradox: that a profession premised on caring for the ill also systematically depersonalizes dying. Final Exam follows Chen over the course of her education, training, and practice as she grapples at strikingly close range with the problem of mortality.
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Not just about end of life
- By Paul Mullen on 03-25-07
By: Pauline W. Chen
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Get Well Soon
- History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
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Didn't know syphilis could be so fascinating.
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-17
By: Jennifer Wright
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Quackery
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What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
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The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
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In the tiny timber town of Cordelia, Idaho, 99-year-old Weldon Applegate recounts his life in all its glory, filled with tall tales writ large with murder, mayhem, avalanches, and bootlegging. It’s the story of dark pine forests brewing with ancient magic, and Weldon’s struggle as a boy to keep his father’s inherited timber claim, the Lost Lot, from the ravenous clutches of Linden Laughlin.
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That was a pretty good story….
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All the Knowledge in the World
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All the Knowledge in the World is a history and celebration of those who created the most ground-breaking and remarkable publishing phenomenon of any age. Simon Garfield, who “has a genius for being sparked to life by esoteric enthusiasm and charming readers with his delight” (The Times), guides us on an utterly delightful journey, from Ancient Greece to Wikipedia, from modest single-volumes to the 11,000-volume Chinese manuscript that was too big to print.
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Excellent, as usual
- By Debra Tydd on 07-23-23
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Lincoln's Melancholy
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Lincoln found the solace and tactics he needed to deal with the nation’s worst crisis in the “coping strategies” he had developed over a lifetime of persevering through depressive episodes and personal tragedies. With empathy and authority gained from his own experience with depression, Shenk crafts a nuanced, revelatory account of Lincoln and his legacy. Based on careful, intrepid research, Lincoln’s Melancholy unveils a wholly new perspective on how our greatest president brought America through its greatest turmoil.
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Good and in depth view
- By Order B on 11-13-22
What listeners say about The Butchering Art
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- WRWF
- 12-22-17
Not one boring moment!
If you were unlucky enough to have surgery in an English hospital in the mid 19th century, you often left as a corpse. This book shows the horrible conditions and follows the struggles of Dr. Joseph Lister who ushered in a new era in medicine and in the process saved countless lives. Both author and narrator do a great job of immersing the reader in the Victorian era. There is not one boring moment in this book.
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- Michael Hicks
- 01-02-18
An Important Moment In Medicine
Whether or not you immediately recognize the name, Joseph Lister’s scientific crusade as a surgeon against infectious diseases has made him, quite literally, a household name. You may even have at least one of the antiseptic remedies his work helped to popularize in your bathroom medicine cabinet, in the form of Listerine mouthwash. Oral antiseptics are just one of the products made possible thanks to Lister’s rigorous studies, and modern medicine as a whole forever owes a large debt to this surgeon’s work.
Let’s take a step back to the Victoria era and imagine the conditions of your average hospital, as explored by Lindsey Fitzharris. The corridors reek of urine and feces, on top of the stench of rotting, infected wounds. You’ve broken your leg, a condition that will likely result in the amputation of that limb once infection sets in. Your surgeon is covered in the blood and guts of his previous patients, his surgical tools still clotted with the meat and gore from the last operation. There’s no morphine, no sterilization, and you’re wide awake, biting down on a stick of wood most likely, as your leg is quickly cut away, dirty hands working fast to tie off the veins and arteries before you bleed out. You survive the operation, but whether or not you live long enough to make it out of that diseased hospital and a bed that may not only be home to an infestation of bacteria, but fungus as well – that’s strictly left to chance. Maybe you’ll live, maybe you won’t.
Medically, we’ve come a long, long way since the operating theaters of Joseph Lister’s early career, and this is due in no small part to the accomplishments and perseverance of Lister himself. Obsessed with discovering ways to control inflammation of wounds, Lister began experimenting with various compounds and solutions to ensure his patients survived their operations. At a time when the majority of the medical community refused to accept the premise that microscopic organisms were infecting their patients, Lister embraced the idea of germ theory and began concocting ways to counteract the septic conditions that claimed so many lives.
Fitzharris takes us on a journey of Lister’s life and work, examining the various influences of the men and women surrounding the young Quaker who would forever change the art of medicine. Like Lister, Fitzharris isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, and this particular narrative isn’t for the squeamish. While it’s not a consistently graphic and gore-filled work, Fitzharris pulls no punches in the book’s opening, where she graphically details the work, and the working conditions, of Victorian surgeons and life in that era. Other moments allow Fitzharris to display a keen wit, as in one particular anecdote about The Big Stink that might have listeners turning their nose up. Fans of Mary Roach’s Stiff should feel right at home with the topics and tone presented here, and even if The Butchering Art isn’t as consistently engaging as Roach’s earlier work it is still a compelling, highly interesting work in its own right.
British actor Ralph Lister delivers an engaging narration, and one that, to this American’s ears, made the story all that more immersive and authentic thanks to his accent. Lister displays a nice array of accents and voices as he briefly tackles the reading of correspondences to Joseph and news articles of the time, taking us from London, Edinburgh, and eventually the US. I did not hear any flaws in the production quality, and the narration itself is top-notch, making this another win for Audible Studios.
Lindsey Fitzharris presents a compelling account of a very important moment in medical history, providing just enough gory detail to keep me hooked. The next time I find myself in a clean, sanitary hospital stocked with a ready supply of painkillers, I’ll think twice before complaining and offer many a thank you to the spirit of Joseph Lister.
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38 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-03-17
Fascinating!
Wow, what a listen! This is a truly enlightening book about the realities of surgery and medicine in the 1800’s and what men like Joseph Lister contributed to medical science. They helped change the outcomes for thousands of people. As a nurse, I am forever grateful for their research and for laying the groundwork for modern medicine! Fitzharris describes very bluntly what it was like in the operating theater and the dissection room. Ill admit I couldn’t finish my spaghetti while listening to some of these spots over lunch!
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36 people found this helpful
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- Brooke Helton
- 11-06-17
Educational and Entertaining
I tend to go on fiction binges (3-4 in a row), but always need a non-fiction read before beginning anew.
The Butchering Art for whatever reason popped up in my recommendations, and never one to turn down interesting historical trivia - decided to purchase.
I was pleasantly surprised how the narration flowed in a very story like manner. It didn’t feel like cut and dry historical facts. The author puts you in Joseph Lister’s world - the gore, the fascination, the science and discovery, and the frustrations of a man overcoming both nature and critics.
Ralph Lister has a lovely narrating voice (his accents were done well and there were no monotone moments or areas that were read as if without punctuation).
This isn’t for the faint of heart (it’s starts off in the crude days of surgery after all), but if your a trivia nerd like me - I’d recommend.
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32 people found this helpful
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- Labor Lawyer
- 11-13-17
Highly Accessible Read of Medical History.
I gave one of my rare 5's to this book, not because of its overall literary greatness, but for delivering the rare engrossing read of medical history for the non-medical person. As others have said, the book is not for the squeamish, but one adjusts fairly swiftly. Not only is the history compelling but the historical characters are rendered in multidimensional form and are characters that you often root for. Even the people chronicled for refusal to accept new medical developments are portrayed as normal people and not villainous unenlightened scum.Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry.
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- MJK1
- 12-19-17
Very Interesting Word Of Medical History
I was most impressed with this audio book. It outlines the methodical, diligent work of Joseph Lister in his quest to change the nature of surgery in the 19th century in England and Scotland. As much as it is a history, it manages to maintain a feel of the personal journey of Lister. Throughout the book, the author is able to convey Lister’s own feelings and second thoughts on the topics he is studying. It shows true pioneering not just in anti-sepsis, but it constant refinement of methodology, which is the very foundation of Quality Improvement studies that take place in hospitals today.
The narration was very well done and the story is interesting. Readers without a medical background should have no issues following the narrative.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Jana K.
- 11-04-17
Very well done:)
Fantastic book. Very well written. Classy and smart. Also, fantastic narrator:) More medical history, please:)
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9 people found this helpful
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- E. Khanine
- 08-22-18
Only last three hours are research, the rest is butchering
Out of 12+ hours only the last two and a half hours of the book are actually devoted to Lister’s research and exploration of the germ theory and antiseptic practices. The first 10 hours are just descriptions of butchering and suffering in hospitals.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Eric J Goratowski
- 08-16-18
Amazing Listen
It was a fascinating listen. If gore and medicine fascinate you, you will love it. Beware though, they go into great detail the horrors of not only working on humans...but also live animal testing (those parts made me actually put the book aside for an hour or so). These peoples tenacity and thought are amazing though.... I couldn't stop listening!
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- jruss1018
- 12-18-17
He changed the world!
If you have any interest in medical history, this book is a must! While not an exciting life, Lister changed the world more than he would ever know!
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8 people found this helpful