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Granville Sharp Pattison, Granville Sharp Pattison, 081735154X, 0-8173-5154-X, 978-0-8173-5154-0, 9780817351540, , History of American Science and Technolog
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Granville Sharp Pattison
F. L. M. Pattison
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The stormy life of one of the most colorful and complex characters in early 19th-century medicine

"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
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