orders about reasons,” and again, “Hold your tongue, sir. I would rather drill ten clowns than one philosopher.” He who professes universal knowledge is not in favour with the specialist. Gregory visited Matthew Baillie in London, and the two eminent medicos were in after talk not entirely laudatory of one another. “Baillie,” said Gregory, “knows nothing but physic.” “Gregory,” said the other, “seems to me to know everything but physic.” This Matthew Baillie (1761-1823) was a well-known physician of his time who had done well in Edinburgh and gone south to do better still. He worked sixteen hours a day, and no wonder he was sometimes a little irritable. A fashionable lady once troubled him with a long account of imaginary ills, he managed to escape, but was recalled by an urgent message: “Might she eat some oysters on her return from the opera?” “Yes, ma’m,” said Baillie, “shells and all.” Robert Liston (1794-1847) began as Barclay’s assistant. Like other eminent surgeons stories are told of his presence of mind and fertility of resource during an operation. In an amputation of the thigh by Russell, Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University, an artery bled profusely. From its position it could not be tied up or even got at. Liston, with the amputating knife, chipped off a piece of wood from the operating table, formed it into a cone, and inserted it so as at once to stop the bleeding and so save the patient. In 1818 Liston left Barclay and lectured with James Syme (1799-1870) as his assistant, but in 1822 Syme withdrew and commenced to lecture for himself. His old master was jealous. “Don’t support quackery and humbug,” he wrote as late as 1830 in the subscription book of his rival’s hospital. However, the two made it up before the end. This is not the place to speak of the skill of one of the greatest surgeons of his time; it was emphatically said of him “he never wasted a word, nor a drop of ink, nor a drop of blood.” [Illustration: PROFESSOR JAMES SYME, From a Drawing in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery]