the experience of the French army in the Crimea showed the success of primary amputation sometimes exceeded by two–thirds that of secondary amputation. He excepts amputations at the hip–joint, and cites, as his reason for this exception, that in nine cases where the hip–joint amputation was performed primarily, death followed the operation a few instants or a few hours afterward; while in three cases which he witnessed, where the amputation was consecutive, one lived five, another twelve, and the third twenty days. In respect to the particular time at which primary amputation is to be performed, the general practice of the present day is, when the operation is inevitable, to perform it as soon as it can be done; provided the more intense effects of “shock,” where it has supervened on the injury, have passed off; and this practice generally accords with the feelings of soldiers, who not unfrequently press the surgeon for an early turn in being relieved from the suffering resulting from a shattered limb. In the cases where primary amputation is to be performed, a further reason given by Dr. Scrive for the operation being done on the same day that the wound is received is, that chloroform acts then so much more benignantly and readily; while, on the following day, or day after, traumatic excitement becomes very energetic, and considerable resistance is offered to its influence by wounded men, and longer time and a much larger dose of the chloroform are required to produce the state of anesthesia. If only a moderate amount of “shock” exist, this does not appear to be a sufficient reason for delaying amputation; for a moderate exhibition of stimulus and a few consolatory words will often remove this, and, even though some faintness, pallor, and depression remain, no ill consequences ensue. The late Director–General, in a letter to the late Mr. Guthrie, written in 1855, mentioned the case of a soldier of the 90th Regiment, whose right arm he removed at the shoulder–joint on the 10th of July, for great destruction of soft parts and extensive injury to the bone: “The patient was so low when placed on the table that brandy and water were given to him, and he was then immediately afterward placed under chloroform. When I had finished, it was observed that his pulse was stronger than before the operation.” This man recovered without a bad symptom, and is now one of the Commissionaires in London. Indeed, in the Crimea, primary amputations were repeatedly performed where shock had not wholly disappeared, and no harm resulted from the practice. The introduction of chloroform, by its negative operation of preventing pain or alarm, and by its positive action as a stimulus, has done much to remove many of the objections which were urged by John Hunter against early amputations after gunshot wounds. If collapse be intense, more than is accounted for by the wound to the extremity, suspicion will be excited that some internal