The Jacksonian Era celebrated the success of the common man.

Yet, in the vast

field of medicine it is easy for a pioneer who was relatively unknown to get lost in its

depths. This can be said for the case of Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter. In this essay I will

discuss one such common good doctor and his undoubted significance to medicine.

Thomas Dent Mutter was born on March 9, 1811 in Richmond, Virginia.

Orphaned at age 8 and raised by a distant relative, his passion for learning was

supported by a guardian who undoubtedly understood the value of education. To say

that he was curious about the medical field would be an understatement at best; he was

thoroughly obsessed with it, specifically with surgery. According to the book, Dr.

Mutter’s Marvels, “Mutter has always loved surgical lectures and made sure he secured

seats as close to the front as possible (Aptowicz 15).” Later he would use what he

learned in the Lecture Halls of Philadelphia and the surgical rooms of Paris, to build not

only a career but also a reputation as man of incredible talent in the “domain of

reparative and reconstructive surgery (Smithsonianmag.com).”

Thomas Dent Mutter championed the use of general anesthesia on patients as

he believed it would help them deal with pain, and he was right. In Jacksonian America,

surgery was according to Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz “a dangerous and a horrifically

painful ordeal (Smithsonianmag.com).” Even surgery up into the American Civil War

was deathly painful. According to Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, author of Dr. Mutter’s

Marvels, “the first incision usually brought the patients first scream - the first scream of

many. Soon came the blood, the struggle, the shock. The patient would beg the

surgeon to stop, plead and shout, and yell at the students to come and save him, his

voice cracking, tears streaming down his face (Aptowicz 16).” This ties into how
medicine was practiced in those days, “basics of modern medicine, such as the

infectiousness of diseases, were still under heavy dispute. Causes of even common

diseases were confusing to doctors…If you came to a doctor with a compound fracture,

you had only a 50 percent chance of survival (Smithsonianmag.com).”

Saying Thomas Dent Mutter was a radical innovator is not enough, the man was

a genius when it came to reconstructive surgery. In those days, plastic surgery was in

its early beginnings and, according to the book, it was a “known fact that transplanting a

piece of skin-from either the same person or a different one-would result in the body’s

rejecting it (Aptowicz 142).” This was the old way of thinking. While in Paris, French

doctors introduced Mutter to what would have been considered a revolutionary concept.

“surgeons realized that if one section of the patients skin remained attached to the

body, and that the skin was simply twisted over the open wound, it had a higher

probability of attaching, slowly grafting itself onto the new area (Aptowicz 143).” This

concept would come to be called grafting. This was shown by French doctors taking

skin from a patient’s forehead and twisting it to make a new nose. This concept

absolutely astounded and awed Mutter to a point where he would want to try it. The

author talks about a surgery he performed on a young woman who had her jaw and

lower neck burned when she was five years old and, even though it was going to be an

excruciatingly painful surgery with a long recovery time, he was more than sure he

could help her. Basically, he cut a flap of healthy skin from her back, wrapped it around

her neck, and then sutured the open wound. “Mutter had no idea, that the surgery he

was planning would one day carry his name-the Mutter Flap-and that it was so visionary
and ahead of his time that it would still be performed more than a century after his death

(Aptowicz 143).”

Thomas Dent Mutter was also an avid collector of all things medically bizarre. It

was said that by the time the Mutter Museum opened up 1863, Dr Mutter had collected

up to 25,000 different specimens. His collection, had included such bizarre items such

as “horned heads to strange, preserved body parts (historythings.com).” It would be

safe to say, he was the Leonardo DaVinci of his day.

As one can see, Thomas Dent Mutter was a relatively unknown doctor whose

understanding of the importance of compassion in a doctor-patient relationship and

innovative surgical techniques had shaken the foundations of the medical field in his

time. His contributions have had a lasting effect on medicine.

Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. “Before Dr. Mutter, Surgery Was a Dangerous and
Horrifically Painful Ordeal.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 4 Sept.
2014, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dr-mutter-surgery-was-dangerous-and-
horrifically-painful-ordeal-180952580/.

“Monsters.” Dr. Mutter's Marvels: a True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of
Modern Medicine, by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Gotham Books, 2014, p. 15.

“Monsters.” Dr. Mütter's Marvels: a True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of
Modern Medicine, by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Gotham Books, 2015, p. 16.

“The Women Who Were Swallowed By Fire.” Dr. Mütter's Marvels: a True Tale of
Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, by Cristin O'Keefe
Aptowicz, Gotham Books, 2015, p. 142.

“The Women Who Were Swallowed By Fire.” Dr. Mütter's Marvels: a True Tale of
Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, by Cristin O'Keefe
Aptowicz, Gotham Books, 2015, p. 143.

“Thomas Mutter: Strange Collectionist Extraordinaire.” History Things, 23 Nov. 2016,

historythings.com/thomas-mutter-strange-collectionist-extraordinaire/.