The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

by Lindsey Fitzharris

Liston handed the knife to one of the surgical dressers, who, in return, handed him a saw. The same assistant drew up the muscles, which would later be used in forming an adequate stump for the amputee. The great surgeon made half a dozen strokes before the limb fell off, into the waiting hands of a second assistant, who promptly tossed it into a box full of sawdust just to the side of the operating table. Meanwhile, the first assistant momentarily released the tourniquet to reveal the severed arteries and veins that would need to be tied up. In a mid-thigh amputation, there are commonly eleven to secure by ligature. Liston tied off the main artery with a square knot and then turned his attention to the smaller blood vessels, which he drew up one by one using a sharp hook called a tenaculum. His assistant loosened the tourniquet once more while Liston stitched the remaining flesh closed. It took all of twenty-eight seconds for Liston to remove Churchill’s right leg,