Sir — In his review of Stephen S. Hall's ACommotion in the Blood: Life and Death in the Immune System (Nature 388, 841; 1997), Fred S. Rosen makes no attempt to conceal his bias about surgeons: “Coley was at heart a surgeon, a profession with a strong theatrical element that is basically in conflict with the painstaking details of data-gathering requisite for good science.”

Here it is Rosen who is being theatrical because he lacks supporting data. Surgeons continue to make major scientific advances which are analysed with the same scrutiny as Rosen's own, earning not only peer-reviewed funding but also international recognition.

Perhaps Rosen is unaware that Joseph E. Murray, Charles B.Huggins, Emil T. Kocher and other Nobel prizewinners were all clinically active surgeons.

Rosen lists his affiliation as the Center for Blood Research in Boston. He ought to know that one of the intellectual giants on whose shoulders he stands was Dr Charles S. Drew. Drew, an African-American scientist who must have excelled at the painstaking details of data-gathering to father modern blood-banking, was first and foremost a surgeon.

Surgical leadership abounds in current science despite the pervasive bias that Rosen preaches.