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Genius on the Edge : The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted by Gerald Imber (2010, Hardcover)
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherKaplan Publishing
ISBN-101607146274
ISBN-139781607146278
eBay Product ID (ePID)102865379
Product Key Features
Number of Pages412 Pages
Publication NameGenius on the Edge : the Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhysicians, Surgery / General, Modern / 20th Century, General, Medical, Modern / 19th Century, History
Publication Year2010
TypeTextbook
Subject AreaBiography & Autobiography, Medical, History
AuthorGerald Imber
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.4 in
Item Weight0 Oz
Item Length9 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2009-035525
Dewey Edition22
Reviews"Gerald Imber's new biography is the first retelling of Halsted's story in many decades and a particularly expert and thought-provoking narrative... makes the intense strangeness of Halsted's subsequent career a gripping story."New York Times "...highly entertaining, well written, and informative..."JAMA "...Dr. Gerald Imber's unpredictable and unflappable biography, an intrigue-filled life story that's also a sweeping pop medical history, depicts an individual who was two different kinds of good - make that, great - doctor." Baltimore Sun "" With this engaging (if spectacularly subtitled) biography, Imber brings into focus the amazing strides medicine has made over 150 years."" Publishers Weekly ""Imber provides a few other colorful details about Halsted: He named his dachshunds ""Nip"" and ""Tuck"" and was such an indifferent college student that ""there is no record of Halsted ever having borrowed a book from the Yale library."" He did crack a book during his senior year: Gray's ""Anatomy,"" which inspired him to pursue medicine."" Washington Post "Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes....Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting."Mary Karr, author ofThe Liars' Club, "…Dr. Gerald Imber's unpredictable and unflappable biography, an intrigue-filled life story that's also a sweeping pop medical history, depicts an individual who was two different kinds of good - make that, great - doctor." -Baltimore Sun "" With this engaging (if spectacularly subtitled) biography, Imber brings into focus the amazing strides medicine has made over 150 years."" -Publishers Weekly ""Imber provides a few other colorful details about Halsted: He named his dachshunds ""Nip"" and ""Tuck"" and was such an indifferent college student that ""there is no record of Halsted ever having borrowed a book from the Yale library."" He did crack a book during his senior year: Gray's ""Anatomy,"" which inspired him to pursue medicine."" -Washington Post "Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes….Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting."-Mary Karr, author ofThe Liars' Club, "Gerald Imber's new biography is the first retelling of Halsted's story in many decades and a particularly expert and thought-provoking narrative... makes the intense strangeness of Halsted's subsequent career a gripping story."New York Times "...highly entertaining, well written, and informative..."JAMA "[Imber] evokes vivid images of turn-of-the-century Baltimore and late 19th-century New York, and skillfully weaves the story of Halsted's life into the history of Johns Hopkins, the institution that evolved around him and through him into a bastion of medical education. Imber has a rare gift for deciphering and explaining the intricacies of surgical practice in terms that will be understandable to a lay readership without simplifying. He makes no judgments about Halsted's tragic predilection and when he muses, he acknowledges it as such. Whether we take Halsted's dark secret as a historical footnote or a fascinating mystery, the influence of drugs on his later intellectual life and the style of surgery he practised and taught will always remain speculative."The Lancet "...Dr. Gerald Imber's unpredictable and unflappable biography, an intrigue-filled life story that's also a sweeping pop medical history, depicts an individual who was two different kinds of good - make that, great - doctor." Baltimore Sun "" With this engaging (if spectacularly subtitled) biography, Imber brings into focus the amazing strides medicine has made over 150 years."" Publishers Weekly ""Imber provides a few other colorful details about Halsted: He named his dachshunds ""Nip"" and ""Tuck"" and was such an indifferent college student that ""there is no record of Halsted ever having borrowed a book from the Yale library."" He did crack a book during his senior year: Gray's ""Anatomy,"" which inspired him to pursue medicine."" Washington Post "Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes....Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting."Mary Karr, author ofThe Liars' Club, "All women who have thought ?run!' -- but did not run -- will experience this book like a familiar dream. It's full of echoes and resonant fractures, and so beguiling in its eerie simplicity. I read it twice."—Miranda July, author ofNo One Belongs Here More Than You, "Gerald Imber's new biography is the first retelling of Halsted's story in many decades and a particularly expert and thought-provoking narrative... makes the intense strangeness of Halsted's subsequent career a gripping story." New York Times "...highly entertaining, well written, and informative..." JAMA "[Imber] evokes vivid images of turn-of-the-century Baltimore and late 19th-century New York, and skillfully weaves the story of Halsted's life into the history of Johns Hopkins, the institution that evolved around him and through him into a bastion of medical education. Imber has a rare gift for deciphering and explaining the intricacies of surgical practice in terms that will be understandable to a lay readership without simplifying. He makes no judgments about Halsted's tragic predilection and when he muses, he acknowledges it as such. Whether we take Halsted's dark secret as a historical footnote or a fascinating mystery, the influence of drugs on his later intellectual life and the style of surgery he practised and taught will always remain speculative." The Lancet "...Dr. Gerald Imber's unpredictable and unflappable biography, an intrigue-filled life story that's also a sweeping pop medical history, depicts an individual who was two different kinds of good - make that, great - doctor." Baltimore Sun "" With this engaging (if spectacularly subtitled) biography, Imber brings into focus the amazing strides medicine has made over 150 years."" Publishers Weekly ""Imber provides a few other colorful details about Halsted: He named his dachshunds ""Nip"" and ""Tuck"" and was such an indifferent college student that ""there is no record of Halsted ever having borrowed a book from the Yale library."" He did crack a book during his senior year: Gray's ""Anatomy,"" which inspired him to pursue medicine."" Washington Post "Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes....Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting." Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club, "Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes….Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting." --Mary Karr, author ofThe Liars' Club. , "Gerald Imber's new biography is the first retelling of Halsted's story in many decades and a particularly expert and thought-provoking narrative… makes the intense strangeness of Halsted's subsequent career a gripping story."-New York Times "…Dr. Gerald Imber's unpredictable and unflappable biography, an intrigue-filled life story that's also a sweeping pop medical history, depicts an individual who was two different kinds of good - make that, great - doctor." -Baltimore Sun "" With this engaging (if spectacularly subtitled) biography, Imber brings into focus the amazing strides medicine has made over 150 years."" -Publishers Weekly ""Imber provides a few other colorful details about Halsted: He named his dachshunds ""Nip"" and ""Tuck"" and was such an indifferent college student that ""there is no record of Halsted ever having borrowed a book from the Yale library."" He did crack a book during his senior year: Gray's ""Anatomy,"" which inspired him to pursue medicine."" -Washington Post "Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes….Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting."-Mary Karr, author ofThe Liars' Club
Dewey Decimal617.092 B
SynopsisGenius on the Edge introduces the public to the man who revolutionized modern surgery at the same time it weaves a compelling biography with a fascinating tour of American medicine at the turn of the 19th century. Coming of age in the wake of the Civil War, William Stewart Halsted became a doctor in an era when surgery was a dangerous game of chance. By the time of his death in 1922, Halsted had transformed surgery and had pioneered techniques and procedures that are routine in today's operating rooms. But this came at a high price-drug addiction and alienation from his friends and family. His enormous professional accomplishments, eccentric personal behavior, and lifetime of drug addiction defy conventional wisdom. In the first comprehensive portrait of this complex and indisputably brilliant man, author Gerald Imber-a renowned plastic surgeon himself-takes readers to the upper echelons of society in New York City and Baltimore, blending tales of Gilded Age decadence with captivating accounts from the front lines of medical discovery. Combining the historical atmosphere of The Alienist with an unconventional hero, Genius on the Edge celebrates one of history's most daring doctors. Book jacket., A major new biography of the doctor who invented modern surgery. Brilliant,driven, but haunted by demons, William Stewart Halsted took surgery from ahorrific, dangerous practice to what we now know as a lifesaving art.Halsted was born to wealth and privilege in New York City in the mid-1800s. Heattended the finest schools, but he was a mediocre student. His academic interestsblossomed at medical school and he quickly became a celebrated surgeon.Experimenting with cocaine as a local anesthetic, he became addicted. He washospitalized and treated with morphine to control his craving for cocaine. For theremaining 40 years of his life he was addicted to both drugs.Halsted resurrected his career at Johns Hopkins, where he became the first chiefof surgery. Among his accomplishments, he introduced the residency trainingsystem, the use of sterile gloves, the first successful hernia repair, radical mastectomy,fine silk sutures, and anatomically correct surgical technique. Halsted iswithout doubt the father of modern surgery, and his eccentric behavior, unusuallifestyle, and counterintuitive productivity in the face of lifelong addiction makehis story unusually compelling.Gerald Imber, a renowned surgeon himself, evokes Halsted's extraordinary lifeand achievements and places them squarely in the historical and social context ofthe late 19th century. The result is an illuminating biography of a complex andtroubled man, whose genius we continue to benefit from today.
LC Classification NumberRD27.35.H36I43 2010
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