Synopses & Reviews
Scientific American Book of the Month Club pick
History Book of the Month Club pick
Book of the Month Club pick
Advance Praise for Blood Work:
"In Blood Work, Holly Tucker has created a page-turning story of schemers and dreamers, criminals and chemists. The result is a compelling and unusual history of science, and more than that, of ourselves and the unexpected ways that we gain an understanding of our world. Blood Work is both a smart and an addictive read, one of those rare opportunities for readers to learn and be royally entertained at the same time."--Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner's Handbook
"Blood Work is fascinating and richly-researched, giving us a gory glimpse of the dawn of our scientific age."--Carl Zimmer, author of Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How It Changed the World
"Blood Work is a magnificent story of the heady days when transfusions were first being performed. There is drama, intrigue, discovery and revelation in this tale and the writing is terrific."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
"Blood Work layers in everything I crave in a nonfiction narrative--big ideas, history, science, suspense, dark secrets, larger than life personalities, life-and-death issues, and a palpable sense of what the past looked, sounded and smelled like. Holly Tucker is fearless in tackling meaty, bloody subjects and nimble at making acute, original connections. Blood Work conjures up the beating heart and ambitious, flawed intellect of a past world."--David Laskin, author of The Children's Blizzard and The Long Way Home
"At what point does medical experimentation so challenge a community's values that it needs to be shunted aside and hidden? Holly Tucker's marvelous study of blood transfusion makes us realize that the scientific community of seventeenth-century Europe struggled against age-old prejudices and contemporary skepticism alike. This vital story, wrestled out of the archives, brings us into the labs, streets, and scandals of early modern London and Paris. Wise in its judgments and supple in its elegant prose, Blood Work is history with the wallop of a novel, a book that teaches as it entertains."--Peter C. Mancall, author of Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson--A Tale of Mutiny and Murder in the Arctic
Review
"Holly Tucker does an incredible job of bringing the history of blood transfusion to life with harrowing immediacy, spinning a tale of blood, ambition, and murder so gripping that it reads with novelistic intensity. She also reminds us that science itself has a history, that the discipline which we trust to explain our world can also be bound up in the prejudices and assumptions of our own time. Anyone with a taste for historical intrigue will devour Blood Work, just as I did." Katherine Howe, < i=""> New York Times <> bestselling author of < i=""> The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane <>
Review
"Starred Review. Tucker, associate professor in Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health and Society, does a marvelous job of chronicling the 17th-century controversy pitting science against religion and shows how much of the language used then against the new technique of blood transfusion mirrors language used today against stem cell research and cloning.... Tucker's sleuthing adds drama to an utterly compelling picture of Europe at the moment when modern science was being shaped." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A fast-paced and fascinating ride through a dark and devious period in science, Blood Work is a witty, insightful, and skillfully written book that sheds light on the mysterious story of blood transfusion." Wendy Moore, author of < i=""> The Knife Man <>
Review
Excellent....Ms. Tucker’s chronicle of the world of 17th-century science in London and Paris is fascinating. A meticulous historian, she paints a compelling picture of rivalries and politics among the various English and French academies and their members.Starred Review. Tucker, associate professor in Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health and Society, does a marvelous job of chronicling the 17th-century controversy pitting science against religion and shows how much of the language used then against the new technique of blood transfusion mirrors language used today against stem cell research and cloning.... Tucker's sleuthing adds drama to an utterly compelling picture of Europe at the moment when modern science was being shaped.A fast-paced and fascinating ride through a dark and devious period in science, Blood Work is a witty, insightful, and skillfully written book that sheds light on the mysterious story of blood transfusion. --Wendy Moore, author of The Knife Man
Review
"Excellent....Ms. Tucker's chronicle of the world of 17th-century science in London and Paris is fascinating. A meticulous historian, she paints a compelling picture of rivalries and politics among the various English and French academies and their members." The Economist
Synopsis
On a cold day in December 1667 the renegade physician Jean Denis transfused ten ounces of calf's blood into Antoine Mauroy, a madman. Several days and several transfusions later, Mauroy was dead and Denis was framed for murder. A riveting and wide-reaching history, Blood Workshows how blood transfusion became swept up in personal vendettas, international intrigues, and the war between science and superstition. In a foreshadowing of today's stem cell and cloning debates, proponents saw transfusion as a long-awaited cure to deadly illnesses, while others worried that science was toying with forces of nature, perhaps even paving the way for monstrous hybrid creatures. Taking us from the highest ranks of society to the lowest, Holly Tucker introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, all ruthless contenders in the battle over transfusion. Finally, in a feat of historical research, she reveals the true identities of Mauroy's murderers—and their motivations to kill.
Synopsis
A riveting account of the first blood transfusion experiments in 17th-century Paris and London, Blood Work gives us a vivid glimpse of a particularly fraught period in history a time of fire and plague, empire building and international distrust, when monsters were believed to inhabit the seas and the boundary between science and superstition was still in flux. Amid this atmosphere of uncertainty, transfusionists like Denis became embroiled in the hottest cultural debates and fiercest political rivalries of their day. As historian Holly Tucker reveals, transfusion's detractors would stop at nothing not even murdering Denis's patient to outlaw a practice that might jeopardize human souls, pave the way for monstrous hybrid creatures, or even provoke divine retribution. Taking us from the highest ranks of society to the lowest, from dissection rooms in palaces to the filth-clogged streets of Paris, Blood Work sheds light on an era that wrestled with the same questions about morality and experimentation that haunt medical science to this day. "
Synopsis
On a cold day in 1667, a renegade physician named Jean Denis transfused calf's blood into one of Paris's most notorious madmen. In doing so, Denis angered not only the elite scientists who had hoped to perform the first animal-to-human transfusions themselves, but also a host of powerful conservatives who believed that the doctor was toying with forces of nature that he did not understand. Just days after the experiment, the madman was dead, and Denis was framed for murder.
A riveting account of the first blood transfusion experiments in 17th-century Paris and London, Blood Work gives us a vivid glimpse of a particularly fraught period in history--a time of fire and plague, empire building and international distrust, when monsters were believed to inhabit the seas and the boundary between science and superstition was still in flux. Amid this atmosphere of uncertainty, transfusionists like Denis became embroiled in the hottest cultural debates and fiercest political rivalries of their day. As historian Holly Tucker reveals, transfusion's detractors would stop at nothing--not even murdering Denis's patient--to outlaw a practice that might jeopardize human souls, pave the way for monstrous hybrid creatures, or even provoke divine retribution.
Taking us from the highest ranks of society to the lowest, from dissection rooms in palaces to the filth-clogged streets of Paris, Blood Work sheds light on an era that wrestled with the same questions about morality and experimentation that haunt medical science to this day.
Synopsis
A sharp-eyed exposé of the deadly politics, murderous plots, and cutthroat rivalries behind the first blood transfusions in seventeenth-century Europe.
About the Author
Holly Tucker is an associate professor at Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health & Society and Department of French & Italian. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.