Synopses & Reviews
Lister Ward describes life in a Victorian hospital from the sharp end of the scalpel - the scalpel, no less, of the legendary Joseph Lister. The book is based upon the diaries and letters of two of Lister's guinea pigs: William Henley from London, a professional writer and self-confessed hedonist, and Shetlander Margaret Mathewson, the pious daughter of a parish teacher. Together with an account by one of Lister's students, an extract from one of Conan Doyle's stories and notes from Robert Louis Stevenson they paint a fascinating picture of a bygone era in an Edinburgh hospital and provide an unusual insight into one of the pioneers of modern medicine.