Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution

by Holly Tucker

Overview

"Excellent…Tucker’s chronicle of the world of 17th-century science in London and Paris is fascinating." —The Economist

In December 1667, maverick physician Jean Denis transfused calf’s blood into one of Paris’s most notorious madmen. Days later, the madman was dead and Denis was framed for murder. A riveting exposé of the fierce debates, deadly politics, and cutthroat rivalries behind the first transfusion experiments, Blood Work takes us from dissection rooms in palaces to the streets of Paris, providing an unforgettable portrait of an era that wrestled with the same questions about morality and experimentation that haunt medical science today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393342239
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/21/2012
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	532,216
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Holly Tucker is the author of City of Light, City of Poison and Blood Work, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, and is a professor of French at Vanderbilt University. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Aix-en-Provence, France.

Table of Contents

Note on Translations xi

Dramatis Personae xiii

Prologue xvii

Chapter 1 The Doctor and the Madman 1

Chapter 2 Circulation 14

Chapter 3 The Age of Vivisection 28

Chapter 4 Plague and Fire 37

Chapter 5 Philosophical Transactions 58

Chapter 6 Noble Ambitions 77

Chapter 7 "How High Will he Not Climb?" 87

Chapter 8 The King's Library 102

Chapter 9 The Philosopher's Stone 114

Chapter 10 The Blood of a Beast 127

Chapter 11 The Tower of London 136

Chapter 12 Bedlam 155

Chapter 13 Monsters and Marvels 474

Chapter 14 The Widow 184

Chapter 15 The Affair of the Poisons 193

Chapter 16 Chimeras 211

Epilogue 227

Blood Transfusion: A Chronology 233

Acknowledgments 235

Notes 241

Bibliography 265

Illustration Credits 291

Index 293

Editorial Reviews

"Ingenious, engaging, and disquieting…Tucker masterfully narrates a rich tale about the competing passions of faith, politics, and knowledge."

Boston Globe

"Blood Work is a magnificent story of the heady days when transfusions were first being performed. There is drama, intrigue, discovery and revelation in this tale and the writing is terrific."

Abraham Verghese

"Smart and addictive."

Deborah Blum

"Multilayered and engrossing…a riveting story."

Seattle Times

"Blood Work is fascinating and richly-researched, giving us a gory glimpse of the dawn of our scientific age."

Carl Zimmer

"A fast-paced and fascinating ride through a dark and devious period in science, Blood Work is a witty, insightful, and skillfully written book that sheds light on the mysterious story of blood transfusion."

Wendy Moore

"Excellent....Ms. Tucker’s chronicle of the world of 17th-century science in London and Paris is fascinating. A meticulous historian, she paints a compelling picture of rivalries and politics among the various English and French academies and their members."

The Economist

"Holly Tucker does an incredible job of bringing the history of blood transfusion to life with harrowing immediacy, spinning a tale of blood, ambition, and murder so gripping that it reads with novelistic intensity. She also reminds us that science itself has a history, that the discipline which we trust to explain our world can also be bound up in the prejudices and assumptions of our own time. Anyone with a taste for historical intrigue will devour Blood Work, just as I did."

Katherine Howe