Since the first edition of “Why Not?” was published, we have received many letters of approval, and of inquiry relative to its author. In issuing this new treatise, which we believe destined like the first to become a standard book, and to have even a greater circulation than that, we have thought that a few lines of information on our part would not be considered inappropriate. Professor Storer’s writings are no inapt index to his own character. He is thoroughly alive to his duties; sagacious to discern the truth, fearless in asserting it. Progressive, without being too radical, he is still sufficiently conservative to respect the opinions of others, even though at variance with his own. Perhaps no American physician of his own age, holds at the present time a more prominent position in his profession. He has already been quoted as authority by European writers; and in this country he seems everywhere to have received the most flattering acknowledgment of his scientific labors, save here in his own city, where for many years he has met with uninterrupted opposition, and even personal abuse, from a professional clique—the result, doubtless, of jealousy upon their part, envy, and that spirit of antagonism which has long rendered the disagreements of physicians a by-word. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has happily described the present instance in the last chapter yet published of his “Guardian Angel,” where he says, “There is no possible success without some opposition as a fulcrum; force is always aggressive, and crowds something or other, if it does not hit or trample on it.” There is one other reason which has undoubtedly gone far to render Prof. Storer no exception to the rule that a leader is seldom appreciated by those in his own immediate vicinity, until—as is rapidly occurring in the present instance—he has conquered renown. Resident for a long time at Edinburgh, in very intimate relations with the celebrated Sir James Y. Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform as an anæsthetic, Prof. Storer is peculiarly a representative of the Scotch school of obstetrics, and has zealously and successfully upheld its peculiar tenets, in opposition to the many disciples of the French and Viennese schools among his contemporaries. It has been asserted of Dr. Storer that, when engaged in professional controversy, he is pitiless and unsparing. These statements seem traceable to opponents who have been worsted, and speak from bitter experience. There may, however, be some reason to believe, that, like his teacher, Dr. Simpson, he has profited by the advice of Polonius:— “Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.” The character of the weapons that have been used against our author may be judged by an extract from a personal attack contained—without a word of palliation or excuse from the editors—in one of the latest numbers of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.