Adrian Marston

Straightforward biography of the surgeon whose textbooks are still used today. He was not an exemplary surgeon but his curiosity and observation skills gave him the ability to write useful works for surgeons. His mother and sister were probably schizophrenic, and later in life he became overcome with manic mental illness and spent time in an asylum, but lithium helped him return to normal life. He was apparently a bit hard to deal with and difficult, not warm to his patients or in his private life, and his young son died in a tragic way. At the end he died partly because he was unwilling to accept that he had cancer, and to undergo surgery that could have saved him. An interesting book about an interesting man. Bonus: some droll English humor here and there on the part of the biographer.… (mais)