Dr. Mutter's Marvels

Dr. Mutter’s Marvels 

by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Reviewed by Gerti

The origins of things are sometimes fascinating. That is the case with “Dr. Mutter’s Marvels” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, who looks at the background of The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia by discussing the life and career of famed surgeon Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter. Mutter’s collection of human specimens from his years as chair of surgery at the Jefferson Medical College in Philly are housed in the building Mutter’s money paid for. I’d heard of the place before, with its renowned collection of physical oddities not unlike Ripley’s Museum, but I had never heard anything about Dr. Mutter himself. Aptowicz here reveals him to be not only a brilliant and talented man who early understood the need for cleanliness in the operating theatres, but who as a doctor also tried to bring compassion to the practice of medicine, and especially to surgery in those early days before anesthetics were commonly used. In fact, Mutter was one of the first surgeons in Philadelphia to use ether after it was discovered, and it is amazing today that there were other pre-eminent physicians at the time who fought against using it because they only knew by the intensity of the patient’s screams how the surgery was going! What it terrifying time it must have been to be sick!

Mutter was a child destined to be a doctor, since disease made him first an only child, and then an orphan. As the author writes so eloquently, “Thomas Dent Mutter was just seven years old, and every person who had ever loved him was dead.” After his maternal grandmother also dies, Mutter goes to live with a rich relative, a single man in his 20’s named Colonel Carter, who provides Thomas with a home and an education, but was never able to cure Mutter of the physical weakness which would claim his life when he was only in his ‘40s.

Like the proverbial candle that burns half as long, Mutter burned twice as bright during that short life. Even as a school boy, he gained a reputation for wearing outrageously bright suits in a day and age where black and brown were commonplace. He originally attended a small Virginia college before heading to Yale, but was popular everywhere he went for his good looks and great voice. These things made him a popular instructor when he went to Philadelphia’s new Jefferson Medical College, set up to compete with the city’s already established but stodgy Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mutter had learned his plastic surgery technique in Paris, the best place in the world to learn medicine back then, and his goal was always to unmake monsters, that is, to do plastic surgery on people disfigured by burns or tumors, in order to allow them to lead a more normal life. The illustrations in this book show Mutter’s success.

DMM is a fascinating book about a time when medicine was more art than science, and its practitioners were often stumbling around in the dark. Mutter was their light. This well-written book by Aptowicz is a well-researched, but alternately thrilling and terrifying study of a great doctor to whom modern medicine (and every patient!) owes a deep debt of gratitude.

Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara?

"Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books" by Jenny Bond 

Reviewed by Gerti

This is a simple book that can be put down and picked up again easily, thanks to the clever design by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy. While I would have preferred the book arranged by author, rather than “best-loved book”, it is nice to have the 50 divisions so you can read your favorite authors first, for example, before venturing into those you know less about. Which is exactly what I did, reading about Jane Austen (in the chapter titled “Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813”) and Helen Fielding, first.

Unfortunately, I had just finished a large-scale biography on Austen, so I was pretty well versed in her life and times. Of course, that biography was much more in-depth and accurate than the blurb found in this book. However, that said, I did find that the other 49 chapters were interesting and did give me many facts about authors that I did not know, even though I had been an English major at college, and an English teacher at the college level.

Because of the way my mind works, I find certain things fascinating, like how many of the authors of “the world’s best-loved books” were Scottish, or how many had a variety of occupations before finally finding success in writing. I liked that the format went forward in time, starting with Austen in 1813, and ending with Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” in 2003. I did NOT like that fiction and non-fiction were divided, because then the time clock reset itself, with Samuel Johnson’s “The English Dictionary” in 1755, and Stephen Hawkings “A Brief History of Time” in 1988. I understand why you’d start with fiction, since most readers are fans of that rather than non-fiction. But I have to say that I found the information on the history of encyclopedia’s every bit as engaging as that of any fictional work (and author). I also quibble with the inclusion of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” into the non-fiction section, because I think that can be arguable (as it seems, can Alex Haley’s “Roots”), but people will argue about anything, especially what constitutes truth!

In the end, despite not liking the book when I started reading, I bought myself a copy so that I could mark up facts on each author that I didn’t know, and could also dog-ear the pages on books I hadn’t read yet. So is “Pansy O’Hara” perfect? No. Just like Margaret Mitchell changed the heroine’s name in her novel “Gone With the Wind”, the authors of this text could have made changes that enhanced my enjoyment of it. But did I learn something from it? Yes, I did. And as a reference book, however flawed, I’m sure I’ll refer to it for years to come.

The Hidden Lives of Wolves

The Hidden Lives of Wolves
By Jim and Jamie Dutcher

Reviewed by Karen

The Story of the Sawtooth Pack

This is a book about a husband and wife who took on the life of living within a compound of their own making for 6 years and raising wolf pups from the time they opened their eyes. They bottlefed the pups and gained the confidence of the wolves by living with them. For 6 years they watched and filmed these magnificent animals, learning how the pack lives and takes care of the young, old, and injured of the pack. This book is a rare look into the family structure of the pack. How the Alpha Male and Female look out for the pack and the Omega is the lowers of the hierarchy and is the one that gets picked on all the time. The Omega is also the clown who instigates a game of "Catch Me if You Can." the pack is also good for the ecosystem.