Sydnee: There’s a ton to talk about, but it’s also still relevant today, sometimes directly. Some of the medicines that we learn about — forms of them are still on the market.

Books - Catherine Johnson Books - Catherine Johnson

Justin: There’s nothing new under the sun, right? If you understand how we have marketed and sold fake cures to people in the past, you realize that people are doing it now. You can have a good laugh about it, but then realize, “Oh, wait a minute. It’s the exact same techniques that have been used to sell cocaine and cough syrup for all these years.” Sawbones A forensic murder mystery set in 1792. Ezra McAdam is apprenticed to a top London anatomist and surgeon and can read a dead body as well as you or I might read a book. But when an unusual body arrives for dissection, events spiral out of control. Ezra meets Loveday Finch, hot tempered magician’s assistant and together they unearth a trail of murder and international secrets… This quote sums up the novel perfectly. In 1792, sixteen-year-old Ezra McAdam assists at the dissection table as a gifted apprentice to a high regarded London surgeon, learning how to reveal the secrets each body hides. His age is an estimate based on medical measurements as he, a mulatto of mixed race, was bought in Spanish Town by his master, Mr McAdam. The skills he learns as a surgeon’s apprentice will serve him well for life.Ambitions, Revenge, Racism, Murder, Death, Blood, Bones, Cadaver, cadaver, cadaver and more cadavers. I did not want to put this novel down. Ezra shows us the world of cadavers from the perspective of medical science, whilst the brave yet vulnerable Loveday introduces the mystery. Together they discover a web of intrigue. The book is both original and informative. Ever wondered how one might treat a baby with colic? An alcohol-chloroform-morphine concoction. Or about a lady who just loved the taste of that raw, cholera-infected water in 1854 South London? Or the poor and unfortunate fate of alligator parts? The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine is here to bounce from topic to topic, with some shorter interludes for weird medical questions from listeners/readers, all infused with jokes and asides that leaven some particularly gruesome and gory medical scenarios. Sawbones’s narration was as clean cut and objective as the scalpel and the mind of he that wields them.’ Big Book Little Book www.bigbooklittlebook.com/2014/01/sawbones/

Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern

Catherine Johnson’s story unfolds from an uncommon source in the rough and dirty London of 1792. Our narrator is non-other than a sixteen-year-old mulatto boy by the name of Ezra, a surgeon apprentice to one of the most prestigious and experienced surgeons of London. Under William McAdams wing he has grown up free, a man of truth and science, where rationality and reason reign sovereign, and where the mysteries of life lie in death and the veil that hides them will eventually be cut down by the scalpel of a surgeon postmortem. That being said, I have a great deal of faith in Justin and Sydnee's ability to write a solid and enjoyable piece of text. I laughed out loud more than just a few times, and I adore that it's formatted to look like a small textbook. Teylor's illustrations were by far the highlight of the entire piece.

Today, the obstacle of modern medicine is the problem of one-sidedness. For example, the Human Genome Project, which deducted funding from all other research areas. Furthermore, the research was unilaterally pushed in one direction and paid too little attention to all different approaches and theories. Ironically, there are now no further results. On the contrary, the underestimated RNA played a much more significant role than expected. Subjectively speaking, one could have come to the conclusion earlier that the source code RNA has something to do with the software DNA. But whatever. This could be further excavated by other examples from recent history and the future will certainly unveil more bias. A non-fiction book: The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine by Justin McElroy and Dr. Sydnee McElroy Chosen by Booktrust as one of ‘The Best New Children’s Books’ for their spring roundup: ‘Catherine Johnson’s tragic tale of bad lad Devon feels real and dangerous enough to hit home.’ SN: What advice would you give to those who don’t have medical degrees but still want to call out pseudoscience when they see it? Sydnee: I enjoy learning these things. I enjoy telling Justin about them. And the fact that people like to listen is just the icing. We knew pretty early on that, “Hey, this would make a really good book.” One incarnation could have been a set of trivia articles, but we really wanted to bring to the book what we bring to the podcasts, which is our interactions with each other and the humor. FAMILY PRACTICE PODCASTING Coauthors Sydnee McElroy (left) and her husband Justin McElroy (right) have hosted the Sawbones podcast since 2013. Courtesy of S. and J. McElroy

Sawbones | The Story Museum Sawbones | The Story Museum

Please note that I have put the original German text to the end of this review. Just if you might be interested. Sawbones is the story of Ezra, a young apprentice surgeon – or ‘sawbones’ – working in 18 th century London. When his master is killed, he meets Loveday Finch, who is looking for answers about her father’s murder. Together, they must discover what connects the two deaths, and why a mysterious organisation called the Ottoman Embassy may be behind them.Johnson was born in London, England, in 1962. Her father was Jamaican and her mother was Welsh. Johnson grew up in North London and attended Tetherdown Primary School. Later she studied film at St Martin's School of Art, before turning to writing. Personally I was also not impressed by the illustrations. They feel somewhat stiff at times and the portraits don't always resemble Justin and Sydnee. Additionally I really missed text explanations to go with the images included in the chapters. At times a portrait would be printed, but it wasn't clear who the portrait was of, as the text described several people.