Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted »

Dr. Gerald Imber is a well known plastic surgeon and authority on cosmetic surgery, and directs a private clinic in Manhattan. An early proponent of prevention and minimally invasive procedures, he has devised many popular anti-aging techniques, and is attending surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital and assistant clinical professor of surgery at Weill-Cornell School of Medicine.

Dr. Imber has published many scientific papers and is a regular lecturer at professional meetings. He is also the author of a number of “beauty books” and has written on many subjects for varied publications such as Departures, and The Wall Street Journal, and appears regularly on network television.

A major new biography of the doctor who invented modern surgery. Brilliant, driven, but haunted by demons, William Stewart Halsted took surgery from a horrific, dangerous practice to what we now know as a lifesaving art.

Halsted was born to wealth and privilege in New York City in the mid-1800s. He attended the finest schools, but he was a mediocre student. His academic interests blossomed at medical school and he quickly became a celebrated surgeon. Experimenting with cocaine as a local anesthetic, he became addicted. He was hospitalized and treated with morphine to control his craving for cocaine. For the remaining 40 years of his life he was addicted to both drugs.

Halsted resurrected his career at Johns Hopkins, where he became the first chief of surgery. Among his accomplishments, he introduced the residency training system, the use of sterile gloves, the first successful hernia repair, radical mastectomy, fine silk sutures, and anatomically correct surgical technique. Halsted is without doubt the father of modern surgery, and his eccentric behavior, unusual lifestyle, and counterintuitive productivity in the face of lifelong addiction make his story unusually compelling.

Gerald Imber, a renowned surgeon himself, evokes Halsted’s extraordinary life and achievements and places them squarely in the historical and social context of the late 19th century. The result is an illuminating biography of a complex and troubled man, whose genius we continue to benefit from today.

The New York Times - Abigail Zuger

Gerald Imber's new biography is the first retelling of Halsted's story in many decades and a particularly expert and thought-provoking narrative.

Prologue ix

1 Tumultuous Times 1

2 Setting the Stage 9

3 Physicians and Surgeons 21

4 Becoming a Surgeon 29

5 New York 37

6 Cocaine 47

7 The Visionary 59

8 The Very Best Men 75

9 Baltimore 85

10 The Hospital on the Hill 95

11 Finding the Way 101

12 William Osler 105

13 The Operating Room 111

14 The Radical Cure of Breast Cancer 117

15 Life in Baltimore 127

16 The Big Four 139

17 Hernia 145

18 Establishing the Routine 155

19 Country Squire 167

20 The First Great Medical School 183

21 Teaching without Teaching 189

22 Residents 193

23 Changes 205

24 Into the 20th Century 221

25 Harvey Cushing 229

26 All Quiet on the Home Front 247

27 After Cushing 257

28 New Horizons 267

29 Addiction 277

30 Vascular Surgery 283

31 Scientist 287

32 A New Paradigm 297

33 A New Era 307

34 The World Changes 321

35 "My Dear Miss Bessie" 331

36 The Final Illness 341

37 Afterward 345

Epilogue 353

Acknowledgments 357

References 359

Index 375

About the Author 389