This would be the operation that was performed on Mr. Pepys. The results in many cases were disastrous; some men lost control of their sphincter vesicæ; many were left with urinary fistulæ; in many the procreative power was permanently destroyed by interference with the seminal vesicles and ducts. Probably some of us would prefer to keep our calculi rather than let a mediæval stone-cutter perform upon us; we are a degenerate crew. It is not altogether displeasing to imagine the roars of the unhappy Pepys, trussed and helpless, a pallid little Mrs. Pepys quaking outside the door, perhaps not entirely sorry that her own grievances were being so adequately avenged, although the vengeance was vicarious; while the surgeon wrestled with a large uric acid calculus which could with difficulty be dragged through the wound. It is all very well for us to laugh at the forth-right methods of our ancestors; but, considering their difficulties--no anæsthesia, no antiseptics, want of sufficient surgical practice, and the fact that few could ever have had the hardness of heart necessary to stand the patient’s bawlings, it is remarkable that they did so well and that the mortality of this appalling operation seems only to have been from 15 to 20 per cent. Moreover we may be pretty sure that no small stone would ever be operated upon; men postponed the operation until the discomfort became intolerable. It remained for the genius of Cheselden, when Pepys was dead and possibly in heaven some twenty years, to devise the operation of lateral lithotomy, one of the greatest advances ever made in surgery. This operation survived practically unchanged till recent times. Pepys’s heroism was not in vain, and was rewarded by a long life free from serious illness till the end. March 26 became to him a holy day, and was kept up with pomp for many years. The people of the house wherein he had suffered and been strong were invited to a solemn feast on that blessed day, and as the baked meats went round and the good wine glowed in the decanters, Mr. Pepys stood at his cheer and once again recounted the tale of his agony and his courage. Nowadays, when we are operated upon with little more anxiety than we should display over signing a lease, it is difficult to imagine a state of things such as must have been inevitable in the days before Simpson and Lister.