Book Reviews exercise in excessive regulation based on tended and weeded by local gardeners. overly abstracted scientific norms. To Many of these men were the most skilled counter this, Warren ends with a call for a diagnosticians or accomplished surgeons in reconstituted coalition of science and public the profession although, of course, other activism. In this sense Brush with death Harley Street practitioners flaunted the participates in the history it chronicles: a same style without having equivalent book written with a rare combination of substance. Perhaps rather less flamboyantly scholarly rigour and passionate public and rather more nervously, display of concern, it provides an intelligent and medical opulence continued during the provocative platform on which to rethink inter-war years, although the Rolls-Royce our place in our leaden world. and the Daimler replaced the horse-drawn carriage. Democratic sentiments, socialist Ian A Burney, doctors and a murmuring about state Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, medicine no doubt fostered this slightly University of Manchester more muted statement of the profession's ideal place in society. Victor Bonney was born in 1872, the son of a general practitioner living in Chelsea. G Chamberlain, Victor Bonney: the Under the tutelage of John Bland Sutton at gynaecological surgeon of the twentieth the Middlesex Hospital and the Chelsea century, Carnforth, Parthenon Publishing, Hospital for Women, this promising young 2000, pp. xi, 140, illus., £19.95, US$29.95 man had by the First World War become (1-85070-712-X). one of the most skilled general surgeons, with particular dexterity in gynaecological operations, to grace the London scene. For anyone contemplating a study of elite Aged over forty when the war broke out, he British medicine in the twentieth century had a distinguished publication record this book is a must. This is particularly true largely in practical gynaecology but also in if such a study centres on London and the in in pathological research. The years before the inter-war years. Nowhere Britain the war saw him in twentieth century could compare with living the obligatory relative London with its ostentatious display of the poverty of the struggling doctor (along with wealth and privilege bought by medical a devoted wife) before the fruits of very practice among the rich. Perhaps the acme hard labour could be fully reaped. War of this culture was the Edwardian era, service was based at Clacton-on-Sea where undoubtedly the most class-conscious a great deal of general surgery on wounded period in British history. At that time many soldiers occupied the day. Branded a consultants arrived at the great London gynaecologist, Bonney never got the reward hospitals from their servant-riddled houses for his war work that he probably felt he in WI to have staff and patients alike bow deserved. If he did not, the fame and and scrape before them. The doctors, of comfort of inter-war success must have course, were giving their time gratis to the compensated a little. Bonney became an poor. This was the bourgeois version of international figure at this time. He had noblesse oblige. During weekdays, the club perfected new techniques for total or elaborate dinner parties occupied their hysterectomy and the removal of fibroids. A leisure hours (which for some workaholics generation of Chelsea-trained gynaecologists were truly few). At the weekends many of learned these methods, which although them retired to their country homes, to fly largely not credited today, still live, lying fishing and to create exquisite gardens, deep in the surgeon's repository of tacit 125 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.219, on 25 Sep 2021 at 07:14:33, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300056519 Book Reviews skills. A study of surgery as craftsmanship Richard J Wolfe, Tarnished idol: William awaits its author. Thomas Green Morton and the introduction Bonney made money. He operated in ofsurgical anesthesia. A chronicle of the nursing homes and toured the West End in ether controversy, San Anselmo, CA, two slick cars, one for himself and another Norman Publishing, 2001, pp. xv, 672, illus., going ahead to set up his equipment in US$125.00 (hardback 0-939495-81-1). private houses. He lived in the style that Orders to: Norman Publishing, PO Box pre-war teachers had cultivated. He had 2566, San Anselmo, CA, 94979-2566, USA. homes in the West End and Herefordshire. E-mail: [email protected]. He gave frequent elegant dinner parties. Politically conservative but no prig, he This book could be described as the first danced at night clubs and enjoyed horse revisionist history of the early years of racing. He was never knighted. Rumour general anaesthesia. Standard texts, both had it that this was because he called Queen academic and popular, tell that the first Mary "Darling" (but, there again, he called successful public demonstration of everybody darling). The historian must ask inhalation anaesthesia was by the Boston the question: what was the relation between dentist William T G Morton at the this style of life and the organization and Massachusetts General Hospital in October practice of gynaecology Bonney tried to 1846 and the succeeding events are drawn foster? from two traditional biographical sources, Bonney's life raises other questions too, Benjamin Perley Poore's Historical materials notably the issue of specialization. Bonney for the biography of William T G Morton of obviously cared little for obstetrics in a 1856, and Nathan P Rice's Trials ofa public vocational sense. He saw gynaecology as a benefactor of 1858, which was surgical discipline firmly wedded to the commissioned by Morton himself. In these, Royal College of Surgeons of England (he Morton was the hero who picked up the continued to do general abdominal surgery baton dropped by Horace Wells, and all his life). Obstetrics he envisioned as carried it through to victory. More recent occupying a similar place. He fought a studies, for example the work of Leroy losing battle against the establishment of a Vandam, questioned the accuracy of the college of obstetricians and gynaecologists established view, noting that there was no (the word order here might be revealing, evidence that Morton ever qualified as clearly the alphabet did not take either a dentist or a doctor. Against this precedence). Geoffrey Chamberlain, background of uncertainty, and after nearly Emeritus Professor at St George's Hospital, 150 years, comes this first full biography of has written a slim, but valuable Morton. conventional medical biography picturing a Richard J Wolfe, a distinguished medical medical world perhaps not lost but certainly librarian, has undertaken extensive research no longer visible. There are few references into previously unpublished material but there is a useful bibliography of all fundamental to the elucidation of the "ether Bonney's publications. The volume is controversy" and to the parts played by the packed with detail in a small compass. many pivotal characters, such as Charles T There is much food for historical thought Jackson. This includes correspondence, here. Congressional papers, and Land Registry documents. The first chapters come as a shock to the traditionalist, since they Christopher Lawrence, describe Morton's unscrupulous business The Wellcome Trust Centre for the dealings, failed partnerships, fraudulent History of Medicine at UCL practices, and debts. That Morton lacked 126 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.219, on 25 Sep 2021 at 07:14:33, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300056519.