Non-Catholics are, of course, not obliged to obey such pronouncements; yet, even for them, it cannot be injurious, but rather very useful, to know the views of so competent a court on matters of the most vital interest in their learned profession. This is the reason why the "Medical Record" has published of late so many articles on the teachings of Catholic authorities with regard to craniotomy and abortion (see vol. xlvii. nos. 5, 9, 25; vol. xlviii. nos. 1, 2, 3, 4). LECTURE IV. VIEWS OF SCIENTISTS AND SCIOLISTS. In my former lectures, gentlemen, I explained to you the principles condemnatory of craniotomy and abortion, viewing these chiefly from the standpoint of the ethical philosopher and the jurist. Not being a physician myself, I think it proper, on matters of so much importance, to quote here freely from a lecture delivered on this subject by a late professional gynecologist, an old experienced practitioner, who was for many years a professor of obstetrics in the St. Louis Medical College. I quote him with the more pleasure because of my personal acquaintance with him, and of the universal esteem for ability and integrity in which he was held by the medical profession. Dr. L. Charles Boislinière, to whom I refer, had by his scientific acquirements and his successful practice, during forty years of his life, become, to a great extent, identified with the progress of the science of obstetrics in this country; and a few months before his late demise, he had published a useful work on "Obstetric Accidents, Emergencies, and Operations." In 1892 he read, before the St. Louis Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, a lecture on the moral aspects of craniotomy and abortion, of which a considerable portion is very much to our present purpose. The Doctor herein clearly demonstrates that, in this matter at least, Ethics and Medical Science are to-day perfectly concordant. He says: "The operation of craniotomy is a very old one. The ancients entertained the belief that, in difficult labors, the unborn child was an unjust aggressor against the mother, and must, therefore, be sacrificed to save her life. "Hippocrates, Celsus, Avicenna, and the Arabian School invented a number of vulnerating instruments to enter and crush the child's cranium. With the advance of the obstetric art, more conservative measures were gradually adopted, such as the forceps, version, induction of premature labor, and, finally, Cesarean section.