The good fight

Considering his contribution to the worlds of medicine and of letters, there are surprisingly few traces of The Lancet 's founding Editor Thomas Wakley (1795–1862) in English literature. He receives a mention in George Eliot's Middlemarch (“I disapprove of Wakley…he is an ill-intentioned fellow”, complains Dr Sprague, the town's senior physician, who identifies the reforming Dr Lydgate as a Lancet fan); he has three biographies, none widely read today; and is the subject of a clutch of articles, largely focusing on his Lancet years. Nick Black's imaginative new novel, Bare-knuckle Surgeon , aims to remedy this situation, exploring “why, at the age of twenty-eight, [Wakley] embarked on a venture that in all likelihood would lead to ostracism from the medical establishment if not the whole profession”.