The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations

"More than a litany of medical advances—it's the story of the gritty, bloody and deadly experiences that underlie scientific progress." —Washington Post

An eye-opening and heroic story of pioneering heart surgeons, structured around eleven operations.

For thousands of years the human heart remained the deepest of mysteries; both home to the soul and an organ too complex to touch, let alone operate on.

Then, in the late nineteenth century, medics began going where no one had dared go befor...