Theodor{266} Billroth, who only within a few years joined the great silent majority, was for many years the surgical sun of Austro-Hungary, around whom revolved all the other lights of the profession in the empire. He was as expert with the microscope as with the knife, and equally great with both. Although his great and elaborate work on _Coccobacteria Septica_ is now obsolete, it nevertheless marked an era in surgical pathology, as does also his textbook on the same subject, which reached fifteen editions and has been widely translated. He it was who made the first resection of the larynx and of the stomach, and to him we are indebted for many other daring operations. It was the fame of this teacher that in recent years led young Americans to Vienna, and he set the example in every way for a constantly growing number of students whose names are, or ere long will be, famous. Billroth was born, in 1819,{267} in Bergen, and succeeded Schuh in Vienna, after having taught most acceptably at Zürich. What he was to his teacher, Langenbeck, such are the younger German surgeons, like Czerny, Gussenbauer, Mikulicz, and others, to _him_. Here may be recalled the pride with which Americans greet the name of McDowell, who performed the first ovariotomy, and prepared the way for a branch of abdominal surgery the results of which have fairly astonished the world. There is much to be said also for certain measures, such as the introduction into surgery of plaster of Paris, by Larrey; of starched bandages, by Seutin; of absorbable material for ligatures and sutures, the latter from animal sources. Finally, antiseptic--or, better, aseptic--methods of operating and caring for injuries and wounds have worked a revolution in methods and results that is, perhaps, the most important known to medical history.