Books: The Bone Garden

This is the first book I have read by Tess Gerritsen, and from the reviews I have read it is not one of her best. Since I did enjoy this one, though, I look forward to reading others by the same author.

The Bone Garden is a combination of mystery and romance, historical fiction, social commentary (on Boston in 1830), and a detailed picture of the state of medicine in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The romance is the weakest part, in my opinion, but then I wouldn’t have picked up the book if that had been its primary element. I was more interested in the mystery, and while one customer review at amazon.com claims that the solution was clear from about a quarter of the way through the book, I certainly did not see it until much closer to the conclusion.

The novel attempts to intertwine the mystery/romance of 1830 with one in the present time, as a young divorcee named Julia attempts to learn the story behind a skeleton found in the garden of the house she just bought. Together with a crotchety old man whose cousin previously owned Julia’s house, she gradually unravels the story by reading letters written by “O. W. H.” to “Margaret,” letters found in boxes in the old house when its elderly owner died.

I agree with other reviewers at amazon.com that this part of the novel, set in the present, is weak and could easily have been left out. The real story takes place in 1830, and after a while I was glad the present-day chapters were as short as they were, because I wanted to get back to where the real action took place. Here in Boston in 1830, the lives of several characters are increasingly intertwined, all somehow involved in a mystery that involves a serial killer.

Stone Age dentistry

I’m always amazed to learn what ancient peoples were able to do in terms of medical treatment. We know how recently (relatively speaking) people became aware of the role of germs in causing disease, and that draining out blood from a sick person was not a way to make him well. Yet thousands of years ago, tools made of stone were used to do surgery – and patients survived, at least sometimes.

I remember visiting the Smithsonian as a child, and looking with morbid fascination at the skulls showing holes from trephination. The thought of it horrified me, but I couldn’t stop looking at them. (Of course, they were in some ways easier to look at than modern photographs of people who extended their earlobes – or worse, their lips - with large circular inserts.)

Today I read about a somewhat more recent practice, of decorating teeth with semiprecious gems. This was practiced in what is now Mexico from as long ago as 2500 years ago, until some time prior to the Spanish conquest of the area. The practice was purely ornamental – as some people do today. What is impressive is that the ancient dentists knew how to drill just far enough in to make a hole to place the gem in, without penetrating to the pulp.

From there I discovered a link to a much older practice, dating back 9000 years ago in what is now Pakistan. Archeologists have discovered teeth that were clearly drilled, and it appears to have been done for medical reasons. Any fillings that may have been used have not survived, perhaps having been made of a much less durable material. But a close examination of the teeth shows that those teeth continued to be used for chewing food after the dental work was done.

Oddly enough, the practice ceased with the beginning of metal-working – which you would think would have enabled those ancient dentists to refine their work. It’s amazing what knowledge we sometimes discover that people had thousands of years ago, that was later lost and only rediscovered much, much later.

I am very glad, of course, to have a dentist with very modern tools. Those stone age dentists may have known what they were doing, but without modern anesthetics it must have been very painful for the patient.

Books: Fatal

When I started listening to this book, my first impression was that it was going to be another screed against big business and toxic waste. (The last audiobook I listened to was Grisham’s The Appeal, regarding which I posted a moderately negative review six weeks ago.) Not counting the prologue (an apparently unrelated incident which is not explained until much later in the book), the novel starts with an accident at a coal mine, prompting concerns of safety violations and hints of possible toxic waste.

Then the book jumps to a separate storyline, regarding the pending approval of a new super-vaccine. Here the apparent villains are those responsible for pushing vaccines on the American public, touting their health benefits and minimizing or denying the risks. There are the drug companies, looking for big profits, doctors who benefit from a cozy relationship with the drug companies, and researchers dependent on grant money (much of it coming from drug companies).

Like David against Goliath, a small group of concerned parents (many of whom have watched their own children suffer terrible diseases – some have even died – after getting routine childhood immunizations) is fighting to make their concerns heard. They aren’t trying to get rid of vaccines, just to educate the public about possible risks, ensure that parents have a choice whether to have their children vaccinated, and push for more thorough research on the long-term effects of vaccinations.

Unlike Grisham’s book, this one was very enjoyable simply as a story. The plot is fast-moving, with a roller coaster of suspense as one new development after another reveals new dangers and new villains. The main characters find themselves in danger, escape in the nick of time, and are promptly back in harm’s way. The characters are well-developed and likable, heroic when needed but hardly without their own failings. There were hints which way the story was going but the end contained some surprises.

The controversy over vaccinations was also handled very well, I thought. Despite my initial concerns that the novel would simply feed widespread suspicion of the medical establishment, later on the perspective seems more nuanced. Vaccines do save a great many lives, the book acknowledges (via consumer advocate Ellen Kroft), and it is hard to argue for curtailing their use in order to prevent a muchsmaller number of children from developing disorders which can’t even be proven conclusively to have any causal connection to the vaccines.