Probably the most prominent passed figure in American gynaecology is J. Marion Sims (1813-1883), born in the South, where he invented his well-known speculum in 1852, whose introduction marked an epoch in the treatment of the pelvic diseases of women. It was also in South Carolina, among poor negro patients, that he perfected his method of plastic operations in the vagina for the relief of vesical fistulæ, which he later demonstrated in Paris to the astonishment of incredulous Parisian surgeons, who had almost uniformly failed in their attempts, and which he later successfully and brilliantly performed in all the capitals of Europe, where, as in this country, he enjoyed the greatest reputation. He was the founder of the great Woman's Hospital in New York, in 1855, an institution from which has proceeded more good gynæcological teaching than from any similar institution in the world Other ovariotomists{297} and gynaecologists of great merit were John L. Atlee, and his brother Washington Atlee, of Pennsylvania; Dunlap, of Springfield, Ohio; Peaslee, of New York, who wrote the first American treatise on ovarian tumors; Kimball, of Lowell, Massachusetts; and D. H. Agnew, of Philadelphia, who is, perhaps, yet better known as a general surgeon because of his _magnum opus_,--his _Treatise on Surgery_, in three large volumes, already mentioned. [Illustration: 0317] After{298} this brief _résumé_ of the names and achievements of the best-known American physicians and surgeons no longer living, it remains only to say a few words with regard to the general character of their work and attainments. It certainly was the case, during the earlier and middle portions of this century, that men had much to gain, beside addition to their vernacular, by study in foreign countries. Edinburgh and London were, at first, the centres to which men flocked; during the middle of the century they gathered in Paris, attracted by such men as Broussais, Velpeau, and others; after which the tide of travel turned toward Germany, where the government does more for the education of medical men and the furnishing of distinct opportunities than is done in any other part of the world. But, thanks to the influence of the foreign schools and the receptivity and natural quickness of the American mind, we have reached a point in this country when it is no longer necessary for American students to visit the foreign centres for this purpose, advantageous as these may be in many respects. The only feature in which we are yet lacking is the matter of government aid and the government control of medical institutions, by which better opportunities may be afforded for pathological study. Aside from this, and the centralization of cases which government control permits, it may be said that the Americans are in all respects as good practitioners as--and in most respects better than--their foreign colleagues. They evince more of