A dramatic account of how 19th-century Quaker surgeon Joseph Lister developed an antiseptic method that indelibly changed medicine, describes the practices and risks of early operating theaters as well as the belief systems of Lister's contemporaries.

Prologue : The age of agony -- Through the lens -- Houses of death -- The sutured gut -- The altar of science -- The Napoleon of surgery -- The frog's legs -- Cleanliness and cold water -- They're all dead -- The storm -- The glass garden -- The queen's abscess -- Epilogue : The dark curtain, raised.