Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine

Abstract

In Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, writer and poet Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz seeks to bring to life the man behind Philadelphia’s famous Mütter Museum. Through Thomas Dent Mutter, who was born in Virginia in 1807, Aptowicz reveals a life at the intersection of mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia and a career navigated through the changing tides of medical education, patient care, and surgical technology. Despite Mütter’s standing in the city, groundbreaking surgeries, and advanced ideas of medicine, his achievements have largely disappeared from history books. In this, the first extensive biography to focus on the surgeon, Aptowicz illuminates Mütter’s education and career and, more broadly, weaves a story of the suffering, conflict, and possibility of antebellum Philadelphia and medicine that engages both a general audience and specialized readers.