If you are thinking of a book for someone who has an interest in matters NHS, plus all the other imperatives; travel, food, love, historical facts and fiction…
I can highly recommend; Nick Black’s, Bare-Knuckle Surgeon.
A meticulously researched history book, woven into a life of intrigue and passion.
Fact and fiction, side-by-side in a powerful combination. History and expertly crafted story telling, bringing a choking, dangerous London, of the 1800’s to life.
Written of a time when incompetent surgeons, corrupt royal colleges, nepotism and quackery… the medical establishment… a small coterie of self serving doctors…
… went unchallenged…
… until 1823, when a young surgeon, son of a farmer, who’d survived being at sea, mastered bare-knuckle fighting (Black takes you into the ring with all its gore and consequences) and escaped assassination, did what no doctor had dared.
Risking ruin, Thomas Wakley, took on the establishment by publishing The Lancet… the global publication so revered, today.
Wakley scandalised the establishment and laid the groundwork for modern health care, transparency and sharing best practice.
As much as it is brutal, for the times Wakley lived in were brutal, it is also a tender love story and remains a message for the NHS and healthcare today.
Nick Black’s Bare-Knuckle Surgeon, is ingenious. Innovative in its story telling of a London that was filthy and corrupt. People who were impoverished and exploited and where, in the summer; the rich moved out to higher ground and cleaner air.
This book is a PhD in public health and town planning. In parts, as brutal as any airport thriller. It’s a history the medical profession cannot be proud of. There are passages that Jane Austen would approve of.
It’s a great read, where you bump into facts and insights and wonder why you didn’t know them already.
It’s a cookbook of broths and pies, the diet of old London. It’s an exposé of insurance company cheating. It’s a book about fellowship and love. About poverty. The impact of ill judged legislation, greed and power.
It’s the perfect present for anyone, who has everything…
Roy Lilley
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