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Average Customer Rating:

Readable and Engaging

Customer Rating:

Blood and Guts is a pithy and readable history of surgery that does not hold back on the successes and the botches. One of the most amusing anecdotes became known as the "night of the pigs" and takes place in the National Heart Hospital in London in 1969. Surgeon Donald Longmore waits for a delivery of pigs. He plans to graft a pig's heart and lungs into a patient to keep him alive. One pig has other ideas and makes its escape onto Wimpole Street, pursued by gowned, capped, masked and booted theatre staff. The pig, now secured by the expert team, is taken to the mortuary to be put to sleep, but the anaesthetist assigned to the task is Jewish. Another anaesthetist is found, but there is another problem: the patient is also Jewish and unconscious so unable to take any decisions for himself. Mr. Longmore calls a rabbi who in fits of laughter gives the go ahead for a genuine attempt to save the patient's life. Unfortunately, the operation fails in its final stages owing to an unforeseen reaction of pig heart to an injection of calcium. Medical mavericks seem to have been responsible for much surgical progress, so it's surprising to read how often innovations we now take for granted were at first rejected by established leaders and institutions. Plus ca change!