Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Audacious and innovative, mid-19th century plastic surgeon Thomas Dent Mtter pioneered the use of anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. Flamboyant in every aspect of his life, Mtter wore pink silk suits to surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed enough medical oddities to later form the basis of Philadelphia’s renowned Mtter Museum.
Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mtter’s efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovation–despite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. In the narrative spirit ofThe Devil in the White City,Dr. Mtter’s Marvelsinterweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the “[P. T.] Barnum of the surgery room.”