These four sentences all concern wounds. The first two refer to the disease _tetanus_, which is very liable to supervene on wounds fouled with earth, especially in hot and moist localities. The disease is characterized by a series of painful muscular contractions which in the more severe and fatal form may become a continuous spasm, a type that is referred to in the first sentence. It is true of tetanus that the later the onset after the wound is sustained the better the chance of recovery. This is brought out by the second sentence. The third and fourth sentences record untoward symptoms following a severe wound, now well recognized and watched for by every surgeon. There were, of course, innumerable illustrations of the truth of these Aphorisms in extensive wounds, especially those involving crushed limbs, in the late war. ‘Phthisis occurs most commonly between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five.’ ‘Diarrhœa supervening on phthisis is mortal.’ The period given by the _Aphorisms_ for the maximum frequency of onset of the disease is closely borne out by modern observations. The second Aphorism is equally valid; continued diarrhœa is a very frequent antecedent of the fatal event in chronic phthisis, and post-mortem examination has shown that secondary involvement of the bowel is an exceedingly common condition in this disease. No less remarkable is the following saying: ‘In jaundice it is a grave matter if the liver becomes indurated.’ Jaundice is a common and comparatively trivial symptom following or accompanying a large variety of diseases. In and by itself it is of little importance and almost always disappears spontaneously. There is a small group of pathological conditions, however, in which this is not the case. The commonest and most important of these are the fatal affections of cirrhosis and cancer of the liver in which that organ may be felt to be enlarged and hardened. If therefore the liver can be so felt in a case of jaundice, it is, as the Aphorism says, of gravest import. Representations of such cases have actually come down to us from Greek times. Thus on a monument erected at Athens to the memory of a physician who died in the second century of the Christian era we may see the process of clinical examination (fig. 7). The physician is palpating the liver of a dwarfish figure whose swollen belly, wasted limbs, and anxious look tell of some such condition as that described in the Aphorism. The ridge caused by the enlarged liver can even be detected on the statue.