There is no "starving time" for him. No weary wait of years for patients to come. At one bound he leaps into fame and fortune by performing "big operations" right and left, when before his coming such cases were only occasionally found, and then taken to surgeons of known ability and experience. The reputable physician respects surgery, and would respect the bright young fellow fresh from contact with the latest approved methods who has nerve to undertake the responsibility of a dangerous operation when such an operation is really indicated. But when it comes to mutilating the human body by cutting away an appendix or an ovary because it is known that to remove them when neither they nor the victim are much diseased is a comparatively safe and very _quick_ way to get a big reputation--that is the limit of quackery. And no wonder such a man is so cordially hated by his brethren. He not always hated because he mutilates humanity so much, as because his spectacular graft in surgery is sure to be taken as proof conclusive that he is superior in all other departments of therapeutics. And it puzzles observing laymen sometimes to know why all the successful (?) operations are considered such desirable items of news, while the cases that are not flattering in their outcome pass unmentioned. I find most complete corroboration of my contention in the president's address, delivered before the Western Surgical and Gynecological Association at St. Louis, in 1907, by Charles W. Oviatt, M.D. This address was published in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, and I herewith reprint it in part: "The ambitious medical student does not usually get far into college work before he aspires to become a surgeon. He sees in the surgical clinics more definite and striking results than are discernible in other branches. Without being able to judge of his own relative fitness or whether he possesses the special aptitude so essential to success, he decides to become a surgeon. There will always be room for the young surgeon who, fitted by nature for the work, takes the time and opportunity to properly prepare himself. There is more good surgery being done to-day than ever before, and there are more good surgeons being educated to do the work. If, however, the surgeon of the future is to hold the high and honorable position our leaders have held in the past, there must be some standard of qualification established that shall protect the people against incompetency and dishonesty in surgeons.