"This magisterial work -- part history of medicine, part anthropology, and part biography of a protagonist whose scientific and personal adventures rival those of the roguish and tragic characters in Twain, Melville, and Conrad -- is also a moral fable about the scientists and the New Guinea Highlanders who contributed to the research that provided a global understanding of human and animal pathology." -- Shirley Lindenbaum, Graduate Center, City University of New York