"There are, and doubtless always have been, men who are like Staffordshire bull-terriers. Wherever they go they pick a fight. Granville Sharp Pattison (1791-1851), anatomist, surgeon, and inveterate quarreler, was just such a man whose fights and largely self-inflicted troubles were unusually flamboyant.... Grave-robbing, aggressiveness, insubordination, brutal surgery, and adultery forced him to leave Glasgow and flee to Philadelphia where he was soon quarrelling with his university colleagues, and making a fool of himself.... Pattison was often described as a charming, handsome, and attractive man. A competent anatomist and a brilliant lecturer, he was kind to his students while at the same time displaying a belligerence, obstinacy, and quickness to take offense that made him an impossible colleague. He was in short a complex character.... Yet it is often true that the lives of the obscure and unsuccessful, with their catalogs of struggles, disappointments, quarrels, and failures, provide the richest historical detail. This book is a splendid example. Pattison has not only written an entertaining account, the book as a whole ranks amongst the very best medical biographies." - Lancet; "Dr. F. L. M. Pattison has recounted the story of his great-great-great uncle with admirable objectivity and real insight into the ways of 19th century medicine." - Times Literary Supplement"
