In researching the life and times of Edward Harrison I have come to realise what an important figure he was in medical history and my aim is to make medical students, historians and established practitioners of medicine also aware of his achievements.

These range from his lifetime attempts to bring about medical reform with the support of his mentor, friend and esteemed patient Sir Joseph Banks; his struggle to alter the divisive by-laws of the Royal College of Physicians which dictated that only graduates from Oxford and Cambridge could become Fellows and his frustration in getting his new methods of curing spinal deformities accepted.

Edward Harrison never wavered in his beliefs despite being taken to court by the Royal College of Physicians for practising without its licence, or derogatory claims that he was a quack after devoting so much time and effort trying to eliminate the detrimental effects of quacks or empirics through reform.