Robert Liston is chiefly remembered as the first surgeon in Europe to operate under ether anaesthesia. He remarked at the time: “This Yankee dodge beats mesmerism hollow”. He was not a good writer or speaker, and he contributed little to the science of surgery, but he was unsurpassed as a lightning and dexterous operator, whose methods of crushing stone and amputating thighs were the envy and despair of other surgeons. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he became assistant to John Barclay, the anatomist. In London he worked under the two Blizards and attended Abernethy's lectures. Quarrelling with the authorities, he was expelled from the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, but was reinstated as surgeon five years later. In 1834 he was elected surgeon to the newly founded hospital attached to the University of London. Six feet two inches in height, Liston was a man of fabulous strength, whose brusque voice was known to strik