What's a germ, Joseph Lister? The medical mystery that forever changed the way we heal by Lori Alexander, illustrated by Daniel Duncan

 In some ways, it's hard to imagine a past when doctors and hospitals were filthy, disease-ridden places. On the other hand, with the prevalence of misinformation and conspiracy theories swirling around the medical field, many aspects of this narrative sound all too sadly familiar.

Alexander takes the reader back barely 150 years into the past in the busy (and dirty) industrial town of Glasgow where a boy breaks his leg in a street accident. Even more horrifying, he's going to have to go to... a hospital! In brisk narrative style, punctuated with somewhat gruesome cartoons, the author takes the reader into the hospitals of the 1800s, where you were more likely to die of dirt and disease than whatever took you to the hospital in the first place. She intersperses stories of contemporary physicians and nurses, those who made medical advances and those who held medicine back, with the life of Joseph Lister. Building on the research of others and fighting against a resistant medical establishment, especially in America, Lister pioneered the concept of disinfecting before, during, and after surgeries, as well as the overall theory of germs causing illness. His work was the building block of modern, antiseptic surgeries and hospitals, as well as what are now considered the simple preventatives of washing your hands and other basic principles of cleanliness.

Alexander includes sufficient back matter to further advance concepts and pique readers' interest into further research. She emphasizes Lister's willingness not only to pioneer new methods, but to update and improve as science moved forward, and touches on the new discoveries in the science of microbiology that have been made since Lister's time.

Verdict: A readable and interesting exploration of a pivotal moment in Western medical history. Recommended.

ISBN: 9780358538172; Published October 2023 by Clarion; Borrowed from another library in another consortium; Purchased for the library