Though Guillaume Dupuytren is famous in medical books as a pioneer of plastic surgery, this intriguing biography is the first to describe his private life and career against the cultural and political landscape of Napoleonic France. As this work details, as the head surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu hospital, the largest hospital in France, Dupuytren treated not only a large and highly varied number of surgical patients, but also the victims of riots, insurrections, revolutions, and the cholera epidemic of 1832. Following his rise to prominence, this biographical account shows how Dupuytren then become became the surgeon of King Louis XVIII and a friend to powerful figures such as Baron James de Rothschild and Baron Alexander von Humboldt.