&i;`This is a very successful and long overdue biography of the brilliant but little appreciated Joseph Leidy - the prototype for a scientist in a young emerging nation.'&o; Peter Dodson, University of Pennsylvania. A leading American scientist of the mid-nineteenth century, the foremost human anatomist of his time, the first truly productive microscopist, the author of numerous groundbreaking scientific papers and books, and a devoted professor, Leidy was often referred to as the supreme consultant in questions relating to human anatomy, paleontology, protozoology, parasitology, anthropology, mineralogy, botany, and numerous other scientific fields. Here his astonishing life and accomplishments are discussed in detail and set in the social and historical context of Philadelphia and the United States in his era.