DR. GERALD IMBER
GENIUS ON THE EDGE
THE BIZARRE DOUBLE LIFE OF DR. WILLIAM STEWARD HALSTED
(March 2010)
by Dr. Gerald Imber
"Gerald Imber has captured in one grisly sweep the barbarism of both early surgery and the manure-trodden streets it grew from. Like Doctorow's RAGTIME, it's evocative in broad strokes....Not just for history buffs, Imber gives any reader a character for the ages. Riveting." - Mary Karr, bestselling author of The Liars' Club
In April 1882, on a kitchen table, a doctor worked feverishly over a jaundiced 70-year-old woman. He had determined that she had an infection of the gallbladder and that only emergency surgery could save her life. Dr. William Stewart Halsted performed the successful surgery — the first known operation to remove gallstones - and brought his mother back from the brink of death.
Dr. Halsted was a dynamic personality and one of the forefathers of modern surgery, yet he remains a man very few people know about.
Perhaps that's because along with his genius came a bizarre personal life that was fueled by a raging cocaine and morphine habit.
Born in New York City just before the Civil War, Dr. Halsted introduced the simple act of wearing sterile gloves, the residency program every medical student undergoes, the mastectomy, the hernia repair, and local anesthesia, and contributed toward meteoric advances in thyroid and vascular surgery. Every single hour, of every day, across the globe, caregivers of every type are using the methods of Dr. Halsted ... a real life Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
This fascinating tale of brilliance and the bizarre is told in meticulous detail by author Gerald Imber, MD, in GENIUS ON THE EDGE: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted. Dr. Imber immerses the reader in the look and feel of New York during the latter part of the 19th century, adding another layer to this great story.
Gerald Imber, MD, is the author of several books and articles and is a frequent lecturer who appears regularly on network television. He's in private practice in Manhattan, on the staff of the New York Presbyterian Hospital and assistant clinical professor of surgery at Weil-Cornell School of Medicine.
Clearly an expert in medical/ healthcare history, as well as being a practicing physician, Dr. Imber would make for a fantastic expert guest.