The reason for choosing Partridge for this role is unclear. Although he was, by then, one of the more eminent British surgeons, he never achieved the fame of his colleague, Sir William Fergusson. The Royal College of Surgeons' biography characterises him as 'a painstaking but not a brilliant surgeon; minute in detail and hesitating in execution'. More importantly, he had no experience with gunshot injuries. The contemporary medical press attacked the mission for its serious breach in medical etiquette in presuming to consult on a patient without having been invited to do so by the attending medical practitioners. It amounted to patient stealing, and was an affront to the dignity of the profession (newly self-regulating since the creation of the General Medical Council in 1858). "The Lancet" was also scathing about the 'new manifestation of the proverbial insular pride which is ever insisting upon the immense superiority of everything British'.