★ 06/01/2021
Maverick physician Robert White (1926–2010) was a man of deep convictions and curious contradictions. A devout Catholic, he sought to pioneer lifesaving surgical techniques and was befriended by successive popes; he ultimately founded the Vatican Commission on Bioethics. As a medical researcher during the dawn of organ transplantation in the 1950s, White conducted extraordinarily ambitious experiments that pushed the boundaries of contemporary medical technology. But while other doctors were grappling with the mechanics of organ transplantation and its life-altering possibilities, White began to question the very nature of life itself, asking if the brain, the seat of consciousness, might be removed from a damaged or dying body and transplanted to a healthy one. To find out, he conducted a series of increasingly public and grotesque surgeries on living monkeys. Schillace places White's work in the context of the Cold War, highlighting the intense political competition that drove and sanctioned his experiments and similar ones in the Soviet Union. Jean Ann Douglass does an outstanding narration, with energy and humor. VERDICT This thought-provoking, entertaining, and more than a little disturbing work is recommended for lovers of medical history.—Forrest Link, The Coll. of New Jersey Lib., Ewing
★ 01/11/2021
Medical historian Schillace (Death’s Summer Coat) delivers a fascinating portrait of neurosurgeon Robert J. White (1926–2017), who performed the first transplant of one monkey’s head onto another’s body in 1970 (the monkey survived for “almost nine days before the body rejected the head”) and dreamed of performing the same procedure for humans suffering from multiple organ failure. Schillace explores White’s deep Catholic faith and outsized ambitions (he ironically called himself “Humble Bob” ), and contextualizes his experiments with lucid discussions of the primitive state of American medicine in the 1950s and how Cold War tensions fueled an “inner space” race between U.S. and Soviet doctors to perform the first human head transplant. White’s determination to prove that “the mind could outlive the body” contributed to breakthroughs in brain cooling techniques for the treatment of spinal cord injuries and head trauma, Schillace notes, even as his experiments led to highly publicized showdowns with animal rights organizations. Schillace explains the medical nuances of White’s surgeries without too much gruesome detail, and her lyrical prose and psychological insights keep the pages turning. Readers will be riveted by this story of how White tried “to stretch the limits of what science could do.” (Mar.)
Spirited and breezily provocative... White’s unorthodox quest made national news several times over the course of his long career, but in Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher, Brandy Schillace finally gives it the thoughtful book-length treatment it deserves.”
— The Washington Post
“Engrossing. Schillace is a first-rate historian with the perceptive eye of a storyteller.”
— Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times bestselling author of The Butchering Art
“A rollicking, irresistible tale of doctors playing God, science facing off with ideology, and fate being sorely tempted at every turn.”
— Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road
“Well-researched. Well-written. Suspenseful. Best of all, the book is fascinating.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Brandy Schillace has taken a most bizarre and ethically complex episode in the history of medicine and crafted from it a narrative that is nuanced, informed, and almost impossible to stop reading. I swear to you, if you have a brain inside your head (or anywhere else), you will find this book fascinating.”
— Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff
“Brilliant, disturbing, and fascinating. A true-life story even more dark and twisted than the X-Files case it inspired.”
— Frank Spotnitz, Golden Globe-winning writer and producer of The X-Files
“Lively and sometimes horrifying... A fascinating and disturbing look at the complicated world of medical research and one of its most extreme practitioners.”
— The Columbus Dispatch
“A riveting, heartfelt page-turner. Schillace reveals Dr. Robert White in all his strange, complicated brilliance: a pious, ambitious, egotistical innovator who was willing to challenge almost any norm—including the definition of life itself—in his quest to develop a mind-bending and potentially world-changing new surgical procedure.”
— Luke Dittrich, New York Times bestselling author of Patient H.M.
“Delightfully macabre.”
— The New York Times
“I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”
— Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes
“Masterful. A probing and provocative portrait.”
— Science
★ 03/01/2021
The mid-20th century brought about great strides in organ transplantation. Robert White, fresh from the U.S. Army Medical Corps toward the end of World War II, was a surgical resident at Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston when the first successful kidney transplant was conducted there. As Schillace (Death's Summer Coat) explains in this readable account, White was a dedicated neurosurgeon, working late into the night after his surgeries were done for the day and often bringing lab mice and monkeys home to keep a close eye on them. He was also a devoted husband and father and a devout Catholic, who founded Pope John Paul II's Committee on Bioethics and belonged to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Schillace expertly narrates White's exploration of the intersection of faith and science, and his determination to find a way to transplant the human soul. Ultimately, White became known for performing head transplants on living monkeys, giving himself the nickname Humble Bob while animal rights activists and skeptics referred to him as Dr. Butcher. VERDICT Schillace brings her expertise as a medical historian to this carefully researched, pioneering biography of an eccentric doctor. A compelling read that will draw in variety of readers.—Marcia G. Welsh, formerly with Dartmouth Coll. Lib., Hanover, NH
2020-11-26
A story about medicine, morals, religion, and human head transplants.
Schillace, editor-in-chief of the academic journal Medical Humanities, has a knack for writing about intriguing, offbeat topics, and her third book, she admits, is “perhaps the strangest story I have ever encountered.” The author tells the captivating tale of Robert J. White (1926-2010), a brilliant “doctor with two selves, two impulses, and even two names,” who was obsessed with transplanting organs. White, who referred to himself as “Humble Bob,” came from a middle-class, devout Catholic background, and he would serve as a bioethics adviser to Pope John Paul II. In medical school, he developed an interest in the brain’s physiology, writing that the organ is the “physical repository for the soul.” In the 1950s, inspired by a Russian physiologist’s grotesque creation of a living, two-headed dog, White began experimenting with hemispherectomies of dogs, keeping the brain alive using pioneering hypothermic cold. A new position in neurosurgery provided White with a platform for his research. Considering his work, the author ponders “what it would mean to be a brain, alive but bodiless.” With ease, she explains in detail White’s complex medical research and procedures, many of which would have substantial real-world applications. In 1963, White successfully removed a monkey’s brain and hooked it up to a “laboratory cyborg” of a donor monkey and a machine White had designed. Still, writes Schillace, “he needed to prove that consciousness could be transplanted.” A 1967 article about White’s surgeries by journalist Oriana Fallaci resulted in outrage from animal rights activists, a surge in brain death debates, and a nickname: Dr. Butcher. In 1970, White successfully completed a brain transplant, inserting one monkey’s brain into another monkey’s head; it lived for nine days. Swirling around inside this absorbing biography are Schillace’s thoughtful discussions of the knotty issues involved in medical and religious ethics. At times Frankenstein-esque, it’s unquestionably a “strange journey from science fiction to science fact.”
Odd, engrossing science history capably related.
