the abdomen in that condition would in general be certain death. Preternatural adhesion must be removed; mortified portions must be cut away: but how can this possibly be done without an acquaintance with healthy and diseased structure, and how can this be obtained without dissecting the organs in a state of health and of disease? It has been stated that the progress of strangulated hernia to a fatal termination is often frightfully rapid; in certain cases to delay the operation, even for a very short period, is, therefore, to lose the only chance of success. But ignorant and half-informed surgeons are afraid to operate. They are conscious that the operation is one of immense importance: they know that in the hands of an operator ignorant of anatomy, it is one of extreme hazard: they therefore put off the time as long as possible: they have recourse to every expedient: they resort to every thing but the only efficient remedy, and when at last they are compelled by a secret sense of shame to try that, it is too late. All the best practical surgeons express themselves in the strongest language on the importance of performing the operation early, if it be performed at all. On this point there is a perfect accordance between the most celebrated practitioners on the continent, and the great surgeons of our own country: all represent, in many parts of their writings, the dangerous and fatal effects of delay. Mr. Hey in his Practical Observations, states that when he first began practice, he considered the operation as the last resource, and only to be employed when the danger appeared imminent. “By this dilatory mode of practice,” says he, “I lost three patients in five, upon whom the operation was performed. Having more experience of the urgency of the disease, I made it my custom, when called to a patient who had laboured two or three days under the disease, to wait only about two hours, that I might try the effect of bleeding (if that evacuation was not forbidden by some peculiar circumstance of the case) and the tobacco clyster. In this mode of practice I lost about two patients in nine, upon whom I operated. This comparison is drawn from cases nearly similar, leaving out of the account those cases in which gangrene of the intestine had taken place. I have now, at the time of writing this, performed the operation thirty-five times; and have often had occasion to lament that I performed it too late, but never that I had performed it too soon.”