This week we welcome Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris—storyteller, medical historian and author of The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine. Fitzharris received her doctorate in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology at the University of Oxford. She is the creator of the popular website The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice, and she writes and presents the YouTube series Under the Knife. Join us as we talk about her love of storytelling, the gruesome history of Victorian medicine, surgery horrors, the importance of failure, reinventing yourself after divorce and growing up in Illinois with a grandmother who loved cemeteries.
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Lindsey's Strange Women Throwback
Florence Nightingale
Strange Women Throwback for this week’s episode is Florence Nightingale. Nightingale was a trailblazing figure in nursing who greatly affected 19th- and 20th-century policies around proper care. She was known for her night rounds to aid the wounded, establishing her image as the ‘Lady with the Lamp.’ She was born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820. Part of a wealthy family, Nightingale defied the expectations of the time and pursued what she saw as her God-given calling of nursing. During the Crimean War, she and a team of nurses improved the unsanitary conditions at a British base hospital, greatly reducing the death count. Her writings sparked worldwide health care reform, and in 1860 she established St. Thomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. A revered hero of her time, she died on August 13, 1910, in London.