Dr. Lister, who treated the wounded Pres. Garfield, had been so stung by the medical establishment’s reaction to his embrace of African-American doctors that he, in response, refused to do part from the status quo...

Of course, there are things that are indifferent to human opinion – gravity, the moondriven motion of the tides, the boiling point of water. But the finer details of reality – the state of a...