Spare Parts: A Surprising History of Transplants

Description

How did an architect help pioneer blood transfusion in the 1660s?What made eighteenth-century dentists become grave robbers?Did a seamstress really teach a surgeon how to stitch human skin?We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world. But transplant surgery is as ancient as the pyramids, with a history more surprising than we might expect. Paul Craddock takes us on a journey – from sixteenth-century skin grafting to contemporary stem cell transplants – uncovering stories of operations performed by unexpected people in unexpected places. Bringing together philosophy, science and cultural history, Dragon in a Suitcase explores how transplant surgery constantly tested the boundaries between human, animal and machine, and continues to do so today.It shows us that the history – and future – of transplant surgery is tied up with questions not only about who we are, but also what we are, and what we might become . . .