Of Flower’s hereditary interest in the crusade against tight bearing-reins, and his official connection with the Anti-Bearing-Rein Association, sufficient mention has been already made in the first chapter. It will likewise be unnecessary in this place to do more than mention his _Diagrams of the Nerves of the Human Body_ published in 1861, to his “Supplement to the Catalogue of the Pathological Series in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,” issued in 1863, and to certain articles on surgical subjects contributed by him at an early portion of his career. All these, coupled with the practical experience he gained during his Crimean service, indicate, however, that had Sir William decided to devote his energies and talents to surgery as a permanent occupation, there is little doubt he would have risen to high eminence in that profession. The little work entitled _Fashion in Deformity_, is based on a Friday Evening lecture at the Royal Institution, delivered on 7th May 1880, and first published in the _Proceedings_ of the Institution for the same year. In its separate, and more fully illustrated form, it was issued in 1881. This is certainly one of Flower’s most original efforts, touching upon ground much of which has received but little notice from either earlier or later writers. The subjects discussed include the origin of fashion; mutilations of domesticated animals by man for the sake of fashion; fashion in hair and in finger-nails; tattooing; fashion in noses, ears, lips, teeth, and head, the latter being illustrated by the curious custom prevalent among certain widely sundered races of forcibly compressing the cranium in infancy by means of bandages, so as to permanently modify and alter its contour to a greater or less degree. Analogous to this compression of the head is the crippling by bandages of the feet of Chinese female infants, which is described in some detail. But the author is of opinion that European nations are scarcely less to blame in the matter of distorting the feet for the sake of fashion; and pointed-toed and high-heeled boots and shoes come in for his most severe condemnation. Neither, as mentioned in the first chapter, was he less scathing in his diatribes against the corset and tight-lacing. That the last-mentioned article of female attire is likewise charged in certain instances with being the inducing cause of cancer was however probably unknown to him. That these strictures against the prevalent fashions of our own days had little or no practical result (certainly none in the case of the female sex), may be taken for granted. The work has, however, a very considerable amount of interest as illustrating a number of instances of the manner in which uncivilised nations modify and mutilate various parts of the body for the sake of what they are pleased to regard as ornament, or fashion; and is therefore a valuable contribution to ethnology.