Druin burch biography wikipedia

Non-fiction — paperback; Vintage; pages; Review copy courtesy of the publisher. So when it popped through my door I was slightly taken aback to discover that it was actually a biography.

Druin Burch, 34, studied Human Sciences at Oxford.

But what a biography it turned out to be! When the family moved to Yarmouth he began training under a local apothecary, who also doubled as a surgeon, in the hope that he might learn enough to follow his older brothers into university and perhaps a physicianship, or his uncle to a hospital and career as a surgeon. He did well and moved on to become an apprentice to a surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

This was to have a profound influence on him, because it was not long after that he decided to embark on surgical training in London, much to the delight of his family. In London, his early career got off to a shaky start. His superiors regarded him as lazy.

Druin Burch is a consultant physician, a former junior doctor, and the author of books on history and medicine.

The skill and industry with which Astley dissected the arm astonished both the apprentice and the teacher. Astley was transformed. The fraudulent military uniform was gone, and in its place was the dress of a surgeon. For the first time in his life he found himself taking an interest in work. Indeed, Astley is often so desperate for fresh corpses he steals neighbourhood pets and dissects them at home while they are still alive, something that turns the stomach today but which, at the time, taught him much that was not known by the surgeons of the day.

Readers with weak stomachs will find much to disgust them in this book, not least the descriptions of vivisection but also the many and varied operations that are performed without anesthesia.