_Soranus_, of Ephesus, was an eminent physician of the Methodist school, who practised in Rome in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. He wrote a great work on diseases of women, of which a Greek manuscript, copied in the fifteenth century, was discovered in La Bibliothèque Royale in Paris by Dietz, who was commissioned by the Prussian Government to explore the public libraries of Europe. The same investigator also discovered another copy of the work, in a worse state of preservation however, in the Vatican library. Parts of the writings of Soranus are preserved in the writings of Oribasius. There is no doubt that Soranus was a very accomplished obstetrician and gynæcologist. His description of the uterus and its ligaments and the displacements to which the organ is liable reveals a practical knowledge of anatomy. Unlike most medical writers of ancient times, he did not adopt the method of recording various methods of treatment copied from previous writers, but his textbook is systematic. In writing about a disease he begins with a historical introduction, and proceeds to describe its causation, symptoms, and course, and the treatment of its various phases. His account of obstetrics shows that the art was well understood in his time. His work on the subjects of dystocia, inflammation of the uterus, and prolapse is perhaps the best. He refers also to hysterectomy. It is interesting to note that he used the speculum. He describes the qualifications of a good midwife. She need not know very much anatomy, but should have been trained in dietetics, materia medica, and minor surgical manipulations, such as version. She should be free from all corrupt and criminal practices, temperate, and not superstitious or avaricious. In dealing with the subject of inversion of the uterus, Soranus points out that this condition may be caused by traction on the cord. It is noteworthy that he recognized the method of embryotomy as necessary when other measures had failed. In his time leprosy was very prevalent. It had probably been brought in the first place from the East into Italy by Pompey. Some of the remedies used by Soranus for this disease are to be found in the works of Galen. Soranus wrote books on other medical subjects, but there is difficulty in deciding as to what is spurious and what is genuine in the works attributed to his authorship. There were other physicians of the same name. Galen quotes a book by Soranus on pharmacy, and Cælius Aurelianus one on fevers. He is also quoted by Tertullian, and by Paulus Ægineta, who writes that Soranus was one of the first Greek physicians to describe the guinea-worm. Soranus, in the opinion of St. Augustine, was _Medicinæ auctor nobilissimus_. He was far removed from the prejudices and superstitions of his time, as is shown by his denunciation of magical incantations.