The term “conservative surgery,” as first used by Sir W. Fergusson in 1852, meant operations for the preservation of some part of the body, which would otherwise have been unnecessarily sacrificed. A smaller and more limited operation was undertaken to remove simply the incurably disorganised portion of the body, such as a diseased joint, and not an entire limb. Thus Fergusson said, “a compromise may be made, whereby the original constitution and frame, as from the Maker’s hand, may be kept as nearly as possible in its normal state of integrity.” “No one can more thoroughly appreciate a well-performed amputation than I do, but I certainly appreciate more highly the operation which sets aside the necessity for that mutilation.” * * * * * Two great surgeons thus bear testimony to Fergusson: “The improvements which he introduced in lithotrity and in the cure of cleft-palate may almost be considered typical,” says Sir Spencer Wells,[3] “of the school of modern conservative surgery, and will long be acknowledged as triumphs of British surgery in the reign of Victoria.” He was, in the words of Sir James Paget, “the greatest master of the art, the greatest practical surgeon of our time.” WILLIAM FERGUSSON was born on March 20th, 1808, at Prestonpans, East Lothian, and was educated first at Lochmaben in Dumfriesshire and afterwards at the High School of Edinburgh. At fifteen he entered a lawyer’s office, by his own desire, but soon found that law did not suit him, and at seventeen exchanged law for medicine, which profession his father had wished him to adopt. He was early attracted by the teaching of Robert Knox, the celebrated anatomist, who quickly discerned the stuff his pupil was made of. Fergusson would often spend from twelve to sixteen hours a day in the dissecting-room. One of his dissections of the nerves of the face, preserved in the museum of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons, remains an admirable example of manipulative skill and dexterity, and the stand on which it is placed is also a specimen of his work. At twenty Knox made him demonstrator to his class, which then numbered four hundred. He had previously assisted John Turner, Professor of Surgery at the College of Surgeons. At the early age of twenty-one Fergusson became Fellow of the College of Surgeons by examination. Knox then promoted him to a share in his lectures on general anatomy, and the young lecturer also gave demonstrations on surgical anatomy, which proved highly valuable. He soon began to manifest his skill in operative surgery, and in 1831 he was elected surgeon to the Edinburgh Royal Dispensary, and showed his boldness by performing the important operation of tying the subclavian artery, which as yet had only been twice done in Scotland. In 1833 he married Miss Ranken, heiress of the estate of Spittlehaugh in Peeblesshire. This marriage, while it placed him beyond pecuniary difficulty, had no effect in diminishing his industry.