By increase of knowledge of the anatomy of the brain, and of the distribution of nerves connected with it, it has become possible in a certain number of cases to determine what part of the brain is suffering from irritation or pressure, and to operate for the removal of the tumour or other substance causing the trouble, with considerable hope of giving permanent relief. A branch of surgery which has developed into an important specialty during the last century is that known as plastic and orthopædic surgery [ameliorating deformities]. The replacing of a lost nose by engrafting other tissue in its place is a very old triumph of surgical art, but operations of this kind have been greatly extended and perfected within the last hundred years, and much can now be done to mitigate the deformity and weakness due to club feet, bandy legs, contracted joints, etc., which formerly were considered to be beyond remedy. Many of the diseases peculiar to women have been deprived of much of their terrors within a hundred years. In 1800, for every thousand children born, from ten to twenty mothers died. Puerperal fever occurred in epidemics, following certain physicians and nurses, but nothing was known as to its causes or nature. To-day puerperal fever is almost unknown in the hospitals or in the practice of a skilled physician. The death-rate of mothers is less than five per thousand births, and the mechanical obstructions which a century ago would almost certainly have brought about the death of both mother and child, are now so dealt with that more than half of both mothers and children are saved. The study of the diseases of the eye has greatly developed another specialty during the century, viz., ophthalmology. The investigations of Helmholtz in physiological optics, with his invention of the ophthalmoscope in 1852, effected a revolution in this branch of medical science and art, and have added greatly to human comfort and happiness. A hundred years ago, when the physician saw the eyelids of a new-born babe redden, and swell, and yellow matter ooze from between them, he knew that in a few days or weeks the child would be partially or wholly blind, but he knew nothing of the simple means by which the skilled physician can now prevent such a calamity. It is unfortunately true that this knowledge is not even now sufficiently widely diffused, and that our blind asylums must, for some time to come, continue to receive those that have been deprived of sight during the first months of their life through the ignorance or neglect of those who should have properly cared for them.