The Icepick Surgeon

Okay so: this was a pretty fun read for the most part: goes by pretty fast, and is largely engaging. Kean tells these admittedly gruesome stories with a good, engaging narrative voice that’s very entertaining, while still being very serious about the truly atrocious and awful events exhibited in the stories he narrates.

He also makes a very good case for his stand that ethics and science must work together in order for the latter to move forward, and for the latter to inform the former. Through the stories he tells, Kean makes a good case of the argument that, in order for science to be considered “good” science, then research and experimentation must be done with good ethics in mind, because sacrificing those ethics not only means pointless human suffering, but can also create bad data.

However, while he makes clear that a commitment to ethical research is important, he also takes the time to point out that it isn’t necessarily EASY, especially when dealing with data that was obtained in less than ethical ways, like the biomedical data obtained by the Nazis from their nightmarish experiments. While not all of that data is useful, some of it IS, and in many cases is the ONLY data of its kind. But because of who and how that data was produced, there is a reluctance to reference it or use it. What, then, must be done? Should the data be ignored because it was created by Nazis conducting experiments that tortured and killed people? What if that data could possibly help save other people’s lives? This, among other similar conundrums, is something Kean tackles across the book, tying them to the practice of scientific research as it is done in the present day.

While the stories told in this book certainly fit the goal that Kean is trying to achieve, I do find myself wishing that certain other stories had been included. For example: the story of J. Marion Sims, who conducted experiments on slave women and, thanks to his research, is now considered the “Father of Gynecology.” Or the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose “immortal cells” are vital to biomedical research. Those would have fit in very well with Kean’s goal of illustrating how women and minorities are very frequently exploited by scientists for their own ends - but I suppose that he excluded their stories because others had already told them, or were about to tell them. After all, Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was published in 2010 and is considered to be one of the most popular books on Lacks and the case surrounding her. And though this book was released in 2021, it is likely Kean knew of J.C. Hallman’s book Say Anarcha, which covers J. Marion Sims’ role in gynecology from the perspective of one of the slave women he experimented on.

Overall, this book is a pretty solid read that’s entertaining, while still managing to convey the hard, harsh truth about the fallibility of science and scientists throughout history. This fallibility, Kean reminds the reader, is good to keep in mind, as it helps keep both laypeople and scientists accountable, and thus improves science as a discipline and a practice, to the betterment of all.