From the pages of medical history comes the inspiring life story of Dr. William Stewart Halsted, who unwittingly became a drug addict, overcame the habit and went on to perform miracles of surgery. His life was dedicated to tracking down the source of infection, and he was the first doctor in America to practice aseptic surgery. In the late nineteenth century, his insistence on scrupulous cleanliness revolutionized operating techniques and saved countless lives.

Halsted was born in Irvington, New York, and educated at Yale where he captained the football team. In his junior year he chanced to see a stranger soothe a hurt dog and was so moved and haunted by the incident, he decided to become a surgeon. He studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and at Bellevue Hospital where he saw the terrifying consequences of infection. The most skillful surgeons were helpless against it, and Halsted wondered if dirt could be its source. Testing his theory during operations, he purified the air with Lister's carbolic spray, insisted on handwashing, demanded sterile instruments and clean sheets.

With skill and daring Halsted developed an operative technique based on minimizing injury to tissues. To alleviate pain, he experimented with cocaine as an anesthetic. Using himself as a guinea pig, he found that cocaine enabled him to work tirelessly. Then one day as he was operating, he noticed with horror that his hand holding the knife was trembling violently. Unwittingly, he had become a drug addict. Panicked, he realized that his career was over. He was doomed to a nightmare existence unless, by some miracle, he could break the habit.

Halsted performed that miracle, fighting his vicious compulsion with astounding courage. He went on to perform "impossible" operations at Johns Hopkins where he established unique methods of surgery for breast cancer and hernia. His story, which moves with the sweep of adventure, is one of the most dramatic in the history of medical science.

From the dust jacket