The erection of a theatre for the purpose of operating, though founded on a feasible pretext, is a very questionable measure; and, unless of clear advantage to the profession or the public, is surely not without some character of repulsion. As regards art and science, it is certain that not more than twenty or thirty can be near enough in the theatre to see anything that can be really instructive in the performance of operations. In the absence of actual advantage, therefore, an exhibition of this kind is more calculated to give publicity to the surgeon operating, than it is to raise the tone or chasten the feelings of men about to enter a profession which almost daily establishes requisitions for our highest faculties. Operations without opportunities of real instruction, are merely unprofitable expenditure of valuable time. That which is viewed as a sort of _exhibition_ to-day, may be with difficulty regarded in the light of a _serious duty_ to-morrow. Were the object to tax the sensibility of a student, and blind him to any higher association with pain and suffering than that afforded by custom and chloroform, and to substitute for a dignified self-possession and sympathy with suffering, which each kept the other in due control, an indifference to everything save adroitness of manipulation and mechanical display,—no machinery could be better calculated to effect such objects; but science and humanity require very different qualifications, and experience has shown that they are neither incompatible nor beyond our power. The humanity and science that beholds, in operative surgery, the lowest of our employments, and which would thence be impelled to seek, and as experience has taught us to seek successfully, to diminish the number of such exhibitions, and to lessen the suffering of those which are still retained, is perfectly compatible with coolness and skill in the performance of them. When we speak of lessening pain, we must not be understood as alluding to chloroform, or agencies of that kind. We have, on the contrary, the greatest distrust of their utility; we do not hesitate to admit the propriety of their use in certain cases; but we are satisfied that, as at present employed, a very few years will make a great change. Many a so-called incurable case has been shown to be curable by the hesitation of the patient to submit to an operation. We have published some ourselves, wherein we joined in recommending the measure which the patient declined. Many deaths that we _do know_ have already occurred from the use of chloroform; and a _significant_ remark was made by a man who had considerable reputation in this way. He said: "Chloroform is a good thing for operating surgeons."