A little considered aspect of our early frontiers, and an
enlightening book. An uphill struggle against tradition,
superstition, fear, jealousy, pettiness and internal politics. John
Morgan, Benjamin Rush and william Shippen played their part -
creditably and discreditably - in establishing some sort of
standards for medical education and in the horrors of the American
Revolution with disease wiping out more by far than British
bullets. Ephraim McDowell performed the first abdominal operation
in a rude frontier settlement; Daniel Drake, the first Cassarian
section in this rude wilderness; Beaumont contributed his findings
during years of observing the digestive processes through his
servant's unhealed stomach wound; Long and Morton brought
unconsciousness to pain through simultaneous discovery of other and
its application. These are high spots. Not sustainedly exciting
reading, but rewarding. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this collection of biographies, Flexner combines curious medical
lore with the interest of little-known facts of early American
history. The scientists he profiles are not household names, but
are well known to doctors: Morgan, who founded the first medical
school in America and, fighting beside Washington, was ruined by
the petty politics of the Revolution; McDowell, who, although on
the fringe of the wilderness, dared the operation that prepared the
way for all abdominal surgery; Rush, the equivocal personality who,
for better or worse, dominated American medicine for more than 50
years; Beaumont, who, saving a life, won a living laboratory;
Drake, who brought modern medicine to the new West; Long and
Morton, who banished pain from surgery and earned it for
themselves. All these men are honoured in their profession today.
Flexner documents their lives with sympathy and humour and brings
to the forefront the contributions they made to their profession
and their country.
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