Born in 1777, Guillaume Dupuytren was the son of a lawyer and from a family of surgeons. At age 15, despite his desire to join French revolutionaries, he was enrolled into medical school. Descriptions of a young Dupuytren depict a tireless student in conditions so poor he was said to have burned fat from cadavers in place of candles to save money. His efforts led to his recognition as a medical school prosector in 1795 and head of anatomy at Ecole Pratique de Dissection. His surgical ability was also highly regarded by colleagues and critics, credited with performing a thyroidectomy, colostomy, subclavian artery ligation, ablation of nasal polyps, disarticulating shoulders, and being the first to resect mandibular cancer without severe complications. Intriguingly, palmar fibromatosis, the disease which bears his name today was first described in 1614 by Felix Plater, then again by Henry Cline in 1777. However, Dupuytren’s detailed description of its anatomical characteristics, treatment and aftercare led to his lasting legacy, including a landmark paper in The Lancet in 1834. Among his titles of Baron, an officer of the Legion of Honor, and Principal Surgeon to King Louis XCIII, Dupuytren also became Head of the Department of Surgery at the oldest hospital in Paris, the Hotel-Dieu, where he cultivated a distinct reputation as an obstinate, dictatorial and conceited man. It was perhaps Pierre-Francois Percy, chief surgeon of the Grande Armee of Napoleon I, who best summarised Dupuytren’s life and career as “the best of surgeons, the worst of men”.