The majority of persons who have experienced only the minor discomforts of an appendectomy or a tonsillectomy may not fully appreciate the underlying importance of this masterpiece which Mr. Harper’s skillful pencil has drawn. Their idea of an operation will be confined to a preliminary period of worry and apprehension, an active horror of thirty-six or seventy-two hours of pain and distress, followed by a convalescence of two or three weeks of comfort, of visits by friends, of a world in which the recovered patient is the central object of attention. But Mr. Harper does not present such a commonplace picture; for his convalescence became a disease, and almost a fatal disease at that. One of the chief messages implied in his story is the tribute to his skillful surgeon, and a grateful remembrance of the care and untiring attention which pulled him through a serious blood poisoning, and of the radical method of treatment which became necessary to insure his recovery. Moreover, the author has written a colorful and humorous description of his clinical and hospital experiences. There is a pertinent message for every past or prospective patient. After his return from the operating room he was subservient to the restraints of a convalescence from a major operation; he was observant of his symptoms and anxious to communicate his subjective feelings to his medical attendants. He did not exaggerate his discomforts. The post-operative message of this case portrays an interesting and exemplary lesson for every individual, and especially every surgical patient. It is not clear how much of this good behavior is due to overcoming the preliminary antagonism of a man trying to escape a surgical fate, and how much to the breaking down of a strong human will before the inexorable training of a professional habit of thought founded on an unbending scientific routine. But the most important message in this story of a nephrectomy is perhaps unintentional: it is of importance to the physician himself, and here is a book which should be read by every member of the medical profession.