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

by Lindsey Fitzharris

Within the space of a hundred years, London’s population soared from one million to just over six million inhabitants in the nineteenth century. The wealthy left the city in search of greener pastures, leaving behind grand homes that soon fell into disrepair as they were appropriated by the masses. Single rooms might contain thirty or more people of all ages clad in soiled rags and squatting, sleeping, and defecating in straw-filled billets. The extremely poor were forced to live in “cellar homes,” permanently shut off from sunlight. The rats gnawed at the faces and fingers of malnourished infants, many of whom died in these dark, fetid, and damp surroundings. Death was a frequent visitor to London’s inhabitants, and disposing of the deceased was a growing problem. Churchyards were bursting at the seams with human remains, posing huge threats to public health. It was not uncommon to see bones projecting from freshly turned ground. Bodies were crammed on top of one another in graves, most of which were merely open pits with row after row of coffins.