Emotions and Surgery in Britain, 1793–1912

An innovative analytical account of the changing place of emotions in British surgery in the long nineteenth century.

Michael Brown (Author)

9781108792233, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 May 2025

326 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.473 kg

'Emotions and Surgery is a landmark work. By integrating emotions into the history of surgery, Brown has produced not just a richer narrative and analysis but one that compellingly revises the history and historiography of surgery.' Michael Worboys, The University of Manchester, Autumn

In this innovative analytical account of the place of emotion and embodiment in nineteenth-century British surgery, Michael Brown examines the changing emotional dynamics of surgical culture for both surgeons and patients from the pre-anaesthetic era through the introduction of anaesthesia and antisepsis techniques. Drawing on diverse archival and published sources, Brown explores how an emotional regime of Romantic sensibility, in which emotions played a central role in the practice and experience of surgery, was superseded by one of scientific modernity, in which the emotions of both patient and practitioner were increasingly marginalised. Demonstrating that the cultures of contemporary surgery and the emotional identities of its practitioners have their origins in the cultural and conceptual upheavals of the later nineteenth century, this book challenges us to question our perception of the pre-anaesthetic period as an era of bloody brutality and casual cruelty. This title is also available as open access.

Introduction
1. Between art and artifice: emotion and performance in Romantic surgery
2. Anxiety and compassion: emotional intersubjectivity and the Romantic surgical relationship
3. The patient's voice: conscious and unconscious agency in Romantic surgery
4. 'Scenes of cruelty and blood': emotion, melodrama, and the politics of Romantic surgical reform
5. Quiescent bodies: utilitarianism and the reconfiguration of surgical emotion
6. The 'new world of surgery': sepsis, sentiment, and scientific modernity
Epilogue: new pasts, new futures.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], Psychology: emotions [JMQ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]