Beyond the call of duty | 6 March 2010

When school-children are asked to draw a scientist, says Trevor Nelson, nine out of ten of them draw a mad scientist. My first thought on reading this was: why is there no photograph of Nelson on the dustcover of this book? Might he look particularly bonkers? After seconds of exhaustive research I found a picture of him on the internet, and he looks rather a jolly old soul. Professor of Marine Biology at Liverpool until his retirement, Nelson has since written a couple of quirky memoirs and a not wholly unquirky history of diving. This new book is subtitled ‘A witty celebration of the great eccentrics who have performed dangerous acts of self-experimentation’. He has not come to bury the mad scientist archetype, he has come to praise him.

His research has been intensive and his material is rich and plentiful. He starts with John Hunter, the Scottish farmer’s son who changed surgery from a trade into a science.