Microbes and the Fetlar Man: The Life of Sir William Watson Cheyne (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781846220616)

The life of Sir William Watson Cheyne spanned the flamboyant era of colonial expansion and some of the most important medical developments of the 19th century. His own role in these advances - as an eminent surgeon, an early researcher in medical bacteriology, a staunch ally of Lord Lister, an MP, and an intrepid traveller - has not previously been studied in depth. Fittingly for a man of meticulous detail, yet with a restless and pioneering imagination, his extraordinary story emerges from a fascinating mix of family and community memory and detailed archival research. Added to this resource is the sheer wonder of the digitisation of photographs and glass lantern slides from the family home - whereby faded sepia and scratched surfaces revive the 'ghosts' who took tea on the lawns of Leagarth House or served in the medical units of the Boer War. Many of these rare images are reproduced in the biography. When the author, then the manager of the museum on the remote Shetland island of Fetlar, first began to research 'Sir Watson' in 1999, she imagined 'in some small way ... restoring him to his rightful place in history'. She has surpassed this, both for readers of biography and for social historians, not only those researching the history of medicine.

Author: Jane Coutts
ISBN-10: 1846220610
ISBN-13: 9781846220616
Publisher: Zeticula
Language: English
Published: 08/20/2015
Pages: 568
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.20lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.38d