Sir Zachary Cope, a distinguished British surgeon, has collected together a number of essays and speeches mainly of biographical and historical interest, remarkable for the casual student of medical history in their emphasis on a number of neglected personalities, particularly those lesser lights, doctors not in large academic, scientific, government, or military positions who have made substantial contributions to the corpus of medical tradition, science, and particularly to the medical arts. Take, for an example, the delightful essay on literary surgeons. We find the tales of travels and voyages in the diverse places described by Ambroise Paré; the literary contributions of Napoleon's ubiquitous and extraordinarily capable surgeon, Baron Larrey, who was a writer of great literary skill; James Hinton and his philosophic dissections of the nature of life and the mystery of pain which went far beyond the ordinary surgeon's usual strict clinical consideration of such problems. Then we find