A fascinating account of a fascinating man - Rated 
I have read some interesting and unusual books in my time, but Druin Burch's Digging Up the Dead must be the most interesting and unusual book I have ever read. Indeed, I had initially been drawn to the dark, Gothic nature of the subject, but hadn't quite clocked the fact it was a non-fiction title. So when it popped through my door I was slightly taken aback to discover that it was actually a biography. But what a biography it turned out to be!
Digging Up the Dead looks at the life and times of arguably the world's first famous surgeon, Astley Cooper (1768-1841), whom Burch -- himself a medical doctor -- describes as vain, egotistical, nepotistic and "rather wonderful".
Astley was born into a highly educated family -- his father was an Oxford-educated vicar, his uncle was senior surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London -- but he showed little interest in books or study but specialised in pranks and adventures. When the family moved to Yarmouth he began training under a local apothecary, who also doubled as a surgeon, in the hope that he might learn enough to follow his older brothers into university and perhaps a physicianship, or his uncle to a hospital and career as a surgeon. He did well and moved on to become an apprentice to a surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.
When he was fourteen-and-a-half he witnessed a problematic, but successful, operation to remove a stone from a man's bladder. This was to have a profound influence on him, because it was not long after that he decided to embark on surgical training in London, much to the delight of his family.
In London, his early career got off to a shaky start. He boarded with one of his uncle's colleagues, Henry Cline, in a "a grand detached residence with stables and outbuildings" at 12 St Mary Axe in the heart of the City of London, and spent much of his newfound freedom running wild instead of knuckling down to his studies. His superiors regarded him as lazy.
Cline, sick to the back teeth of his charge's reckless nature, came home one evening with a human arm and challenged Astley to dissect it then and there.
"The skill and industry with which Astley dissected the arm astonished both the apprentice and the teacher. Astley was transformed. The fraudulent military uniform was gone, and in its place was the dress of a surgeon. For the first time in his life he found himself taking an interest in work."
From then on Astley became rather enamoured with dissection, working long hours in St Thomas's hospital, hunching over stinking corpses, learning everything he could about human anatomy. Because the study of anatomy was in its infancy at the time, there was no other way for surgeons to learn their trade and so this is where Druin's book delves into the gruesome nature of body-snatching, that peculiar illegal practice of stealing freshly buried bodies or -- worse still -- murdering people to satisfy the medical profession's need for corpses to study.
Indeed, Astley is often so desperate for fresh corpses he steals neighbourhood pets and dissects them at home while they are still alive, something that turns the stomach today but which, at the time, taught him much that was not known by the surgeons of the day. (Readers with weak stomachs will find much to disgust them in this book, not least the descriptions of vivisection but also the many and varied operations that are performed without anesthesia. But it would not be fair to say they have been included merely for their shock factor; they are necessary for the reader to put Astley's life into context.)
Eventually, of course, Astley becomes a hugely successful surgeon and lecturer, has studies published in The Lancet, wins the Royal Society's highest prize and tends to the Prince Regent and Queen Victoria. All the while, he manages to travel abroad (he gets caught up in the French Revolution), marry, have children and teach surgeon-soon-to-be-turned-poet John Keats (yes, that John Keats).
The picture of Astley that emerges from this rather in-depth but beautifully written biography is an enormously complicated man, arrogant but caring by turns, who loved to take risks but made sure to cover his tracks when it counted most. Living at at time of great political, social and scientific change, he seems to be one of the leading lights in almost every field, not just medicine, and was loathed and loved in equal measure.
Digging Up the Dead is a truly fascinating account of a fascinating man who lived in fascinating times. Druin Birch has done much to bring him to life by not only capturing the man so vividly but by illuminating the narrative with his own experiences as a medical doctor working more than two centuries after Astley first trod the London cobblestones. It's a slow-burn of a read, one that requires concentration and diligence, but it's well worth the effort, especially if you are fascinated by science, medicine or history.
Digging up the Dead - Rated 
In today's western society, more bodies are donated to medical science than are required, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, procurement of human cadavers was the lucrative occupation of the grave robbers. Dissection of human specimens, alive or dead, was a professional necessity for the young man who wished to become a surgeon.
Digging up the Dead is the biography of Astley Cooper (1768 - 1841), a man whose initial aspirations were to graduate from apothecary to surgeon and thence the role of physician. A man who rose to be the richest surgeon in Georgian England.
Digging up the Dead also provides an absorbing insight into the age when surgical procedures and anatomical knowledge were severely limited; where surgery was often experimental and where the unfortunate patients faced both excruciating pain and the high risk of mortality.
Soon after commencing his seven year's medical apprenticeship in London, Cooper became intrigued with the science of surgical procedures - more specifically the art of human dissection. He believed that only through dissection, vivisection and surgery could the mechanisms of life be unravelled.
Though he preferred to hone his skill on the partially decomposed flesh of human cadavers, he also welcomed the opportunity to dissect and examine either live or dead animals. His specimens ranged from dogs and cats to exotics such as an elephant, kangaroo and whale.
Astley Cooper was a man of startling contrasts spending an hour a day with his hairdresser and insisting on wearing the finest silk stockings to complement the shape of his calf muscles. Yet he was a man who could rush from cadaver to patient without washing the bloodstains from his hands; a man of physical charm and charisma who demonstrated unceasing enthusiasm and energy for surgery. Yet he had the uncanny ability to ignore the cries from the pain he inflicted on his patients. Without the availability of anaesthetics, it is said that many of the surgical procedures of the day were tantamount to gross acts of cruelty.
Digging up the Dead takes the reader into the often despicable, horrific yet challenging world of dissection and vivisection. The author puts into place the roles of apothecary, surgeon and physician and shows how political allegiances of the time could affect a man's career.
Burch takes the reader on a journey back in time. He reveals a vibrant London around 1800 depicting the squalor of the backstreets, the desecrated graveyards, the fine drawing rooms of the titled classes and the mortuaries of the major teaching hospitals of the day. Included is a stark reminder of the financial and physical costs of surgery. It was a time when life and death balanced on the surgeon's knife edge, where infection was carried on blood-stained instruments directly from cadaver to live patient.
Burch also transports his reader into the dark world of grave robbers -men known as resurrectionists, exhumers, lifters or sac 'em up men - night-workers who were prepared to chance the gallows in return for rich pickings made from the trade in fresh corpses. It was a time when life was cheap and death often came early. Where the bodies of infants and fresh foetuses were charged by the inch and `larges' or adult cadavers could return ten guineas apiece. A time where hospital wards stank of the putrid stench of rot or with the scent of wine and spirits which were used as preservatives. It was a time when the poor had little access to free surgical treatment and usually died without surgical intervention. A time when had access to expensive surgical procedures but where ironically many suffered excruciating deaths at the hands of the inexperienced surgeons.
Digging up the Dead is an intriguing and well researched biographical work written by a latter day physician. Burch interlaces his chapters with some personal experiences, and supplements this biography with a useful index and extensive bibliography. His descriptive passages pulsate with the flow of a fiction novel. An informative and thoroughly enjoyable read.
Outstanding ! - Rated
Druin Burch's exposition on the life and times of the world famous surgeon Astley Cooper is not only a brilliantly researched and written medical biography but also an exceptional biography full stop, as well as a great read.
He outlines the life of an extraordinary person, and manages to draw the reader in to not only the details of his life, but also the feelings he must have felt as he pioneered the types of basic surgery we take for granted. Exposing a fair bit of himself in the process, Burch has written a book that is easily readable by laypeople and gives an insight into traditional surgery - raw, unadulterated and with no anaesthetic !
For those interested in life in 17th and 18th century England, the book does not disappoint and Burch does a great job in recreating the sights and smells of the era.
All in all, well worth a read and an exciting book for a first time author.
Exceptional Biography - Rated
I have no medical training whatsoever, must confess that I had not heard of Sir Astley Cooper and am bordering on the unneccessarily squeamish in medical matters, yet I found this to be a thoroughly engaging, well written and unusually well-informed biography which held my attention from beginning to end.
Being a doctor and experienced in A&E has given Druin Burch an unique position from which to write about and review the life of a surgeon of two centuries ago. The juxtaposition of modern-day gore in the life of an hospital doctor with the frightening world of the surgeon (and in particular the patient) of the early nineteenth century could so easily have jarred but Burch works the two together seamlessly throughout the book and they help each other enormously.
It also contains easily the most revolting pair of sentences I have ever read together in any work.
Very difficult to believe that this is the first book from the author. Impossible to believe that it will be the last.
A Definate 'Must Read' for all Medical Historians - Rated
Druin Burch has opened up the doors of the 18th century dead house, lifted the lid on the coffins and takes the reader inside the mind of Astley Cooper's incredible life during a period of vast social, scientific and political changes. Burch does not attempt to dumb down Cooper's world, and uses it as a framework to provide the reader with a detailed insight of what being a physician and/or surgeon was all about. For medical historians, this is a must-read, and one you will not want to leave alone. Succinctly put, this publication is an education in itself and very well worth the 5 stars I have awarded.
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