Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted
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A major new biography of the doctor who invented modern surgery. Brilliant, driven, but haunted by demons, William Stewart Halsted took surgery from a horrific, 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. He attended the finest schools, but he was a mediocre student. His academic interests blossomed at medical school and he quickly became a celebrated surgeon. Experimenting with cocaine as a local anesthetic, he became addicted. He was hospitalized and treated with morphine to control his craving for cocaine. For the remaining 40 years of his life he was addicted to both drugs. Halsted resurrected his career at Johns Hopkins, where he became the first chief of surgery. Among his accomplishments, he introduced the residency training system, the use of sterile gloves, the first successful hernia repair, radical mastectomy, fine silk sutures, and anatomically correct surgical technique. Halsted is without doubt the father of modern surgery, and his eccentric behavior, unusual lifestyle, and counterintuitive productivity in the face of lifelong addiction make his story unusually compelling. Gerald Imber, a renowned surgeon himself, evokes Halsted’s extraordinary life and achievements and places them squarely in the historical and social context of the late 19th century. The result is an illuminating biography of a complex and troubled man, whose genius we continue to benefit from today. The New York Times - Abigail Zuger Gerald Imber's new biography is the first retelling of Halsted's story in many decades and a particularly expert and thought-provoking narrative.
Prologue ix1 Tumultuous Times 12 Setting the Stage 93 Physicians and Surgeons 214 Becoming a Surgeon 295 New York 376 Cocaine 477 The Visionary 598 The Very Best Men 759 Baltimore 8510 The Hospital on the Hill 9511 Finding the Way 10112 William Osler 10513 The Operating Room 11114 The Radical Cure of Breast Cancer 11715 Life in Baltimore 12716 The Big Four 13917 Hernia 14518 Establishing the Routine 15519 Country Squire 16720 The First Great Medical School 18321 Teaching without Teaching 18922 Residents 19323 Changes 20524 Into the 20th Century 22125 Harvey Cushing 22926 All Quiet on the Home Front 24727 After Cushing 25728 New Horizons 26729 Addiction 27730 Vascular Surgery 28331 Scientist 28732 A New Paradigm 29733 A New Era 30734 The World Changes 32135 "My Dear Miss Bessie" 33136 The Final Illness 34137 Afterward 345Epilogue 353Acknowledgments 357References 359Index 375About the Author 389
