The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery

The vivid, often gruesome portrait of the 18th-century pioneering surgeon and father of modern medicine, John Hunter.

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his gothic horror story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he based the house of the genial doctor-turned-fiend on the home of John Hunter. The choice was understandable, for Hunter was both widely acclaimed and greatly feared.

From humble origins, John Hunter rose to become the most famous anatomist and surgeon of the eighteenth century. In an age ...