appearance every year among the human family. And he will probably add, that it is perfectly within the province of possibility to calculate, if we had all the required data, the exact number of individuals who have the requisite courage to submit to operation; as of those who will not have heart to do so, and who will inevitably die without benefit of surgery; together with the exact per-centage to the population of those who will, and who will not, put faith in the blessed boon of chloroform. It is a blessed boon; and in olden times the possessor of such a secret would have been the most potent wizard of which the earth has yet heard tell. What miracles might not have been performed by it! What dogmas might not have been made divine and true by its influence! Happy was it that those great powers, the magic of chemical and electrical discovery, have been brought to light in a time when they can be used mainly to enlighten and bless, and not to darken and oppress mankind! But that word chloroform is happily significant that it is to no scene of suffering that we would introduce our readers. There is no need to shrink, or to question the taste which exhibits the details of a surgical operation to the vulgar eye. It is not designed, even in this stirring time, after the fashion of ancient Rome, to deaden our sensibilities, or to accustom our youth to witness deeds of blood and violence without shrinking. No trace of suffering will be visible in the picture which shall pass before us. So great is the triumph which modern surgical art displays, so great the boon which it has conferred upon humanity! It is this which we propose to illustrate, by describing the single and simple process involved in cutting off a leg. Permit us first, however, to cast a passing glance, by way of contrast, to the established and orthodox fashion of performing that operation some centuries ago. Bear with us but a moment, and in imagination hope that then, when painless surgery was unknown, no patient lacked support in his hour of trial (long _hours_ then, in truth!) from that great and never-failing source which flows, unmeasured and unfathomable, for all humanity, alike in every age.