Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
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About this ebook
Surgeon Arnold van de Laar uses his own experience and expertise to tell this engrossing history of surgery through 28 famous operations—from Louis XIV and Einstein to JFK and Houdini.
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, Under the Knife offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room.
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?
With stories spanning the dark centuries of bloodletting and amputations without anaesthetic through today's sterile, high-tech operating rooms, Under the Knife is both a rich cultural history, and a modern anatomy class for us all.
Arnold van de Laar
Arnold van de Laar is a surgeon in the Slotervaart Hospital in Amsterdam, specialising in laparoscopic surgery. Born in 1969 in the Dutch town of 's-Hertogenbosch, van de Laar became fascinated by how the human body works in school biology lessons and went on to study medicine at the Belgian University of Leuven. Having travelled the world - the Himalayas, Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, Kashmir, and extensively in Africa - van de Laar took his first job as general surgeon on the Caribbean Island of Sint Maarten. He started writing pieces on surgical history in the Dutch medical journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Heelkunde in 2009. He now lives in Amsterdam with his wife and two children where, a true Dutchman, he cycles to work every day. Under the Knife is his first book.
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Reviews for Under the Knife
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A psychological medical thriller regarding the use of biotechnology to control the minds of people. Morgan Finney heads a biomedical technology firm. He lost his wife, Jenny, after her appendectomy operation and expected recovery failed. Finney wants revenge on the surgeon who performed the appendectomy, Rita Wu. Finney, along with an associate, Sebastian, plant a device into Rita's brain, allowing them to control her thoughts by sending impulses. As an extra precaution to manipulate Rita, they also plant one in Rita's sister's brain (Darcy). Finney can also speak to Rita and command her to perform certain tasks. I enjoyed this book, although I thought the climax/conclusion between Rita, Finney, Sebastian, and Spencer (Rita's doctor boyfriend) was a bit out there in terms of plausibility. However, the concept of this biotechnology was frightening! A chilling thriller.