Thomas Schlich, MD, is James Mc Gill Professor in the History of Medicine at the Department Social Studies of Medicine at Mc Gill University, Canada, and has a double qualification as physician and historian. His research interests include the history of modern medicine and science from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. He has previously written books on transplantation, and on operative fracture care as a domain where surgery, science, and industry come together. He is currently working on a monograph about the emergence of modern surgery, 1800-1914.