A satisfactory operating table may be fashioned in any one of a number of ways. If the bed is high enough, it may sometimes be made fairly satisfactory by slipping a board, such as a table leaf, under the mattress to make it firm. The use of a kitchen table is time-honored, but it is an unsafe practice unless the available table is very secure and firm, which is usually not the case with present-day kitchen tables. A flat-topped chest of drawers, with the casters removed, makes an excellent operating table, for it is firm, a good height and about the right size. Or an ordinary bureau may be pressed into service after taking out the casters and removing the mirror by unscrewing its supports. The front and sides of a bureau, or chest of drawers so used should be protected from the damaging effects of fluids and solutions by being covered with a bed-rubber or newspapers. A pad for the top of the improvised operating table may be arranged by folding a blanket or quilt to the proper size and folding over that the rubber draw-sheet and a clean muslin sheet. If the operation requires that the patient be held in the lithotomy position (on her back with thighs and knees flexed and knees well separated), and the doctor’s equipment does not include a strap to hold the legs, one may be improvised from a sheet. It should be folded diagonally, over and over, into a strip possibly a foot wide, passed over one shoulder and the tapering ends used to tie around the legs, above the knees, to hold them in the desired position. Bandages or tapes are not always satisfactory, for the support is subject to a good deal of strain, and narrow strips sometimes cut painfully into the legs and shoulders. Certainly if tapes or bandages are used, cotton pads or folded towels should be interposed between them and the patient’s skin. In general, the nurse will prepare as for a normal delivery, in each instance adding such details of equipment, or preparation as the contemplated operation requires. Rigid asepsis must be observed throughout the preparations and the operations. When large instruments or appliances are to be used, a wash boiler is probably the safest thing in which to boil them, for it is scarcely possible entirely to cover them with water in a smaller receptacle; and they must be well covered while boiling, or they will not be sterile.