It is within the memory of some old members of the profession, that a man was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, who had a wen upon his throat weighing between thirty and forty pounds. To hang him was impossible without circumstances of such revolting cruelty as would, even at that time, have provoked a general outcry of indignation. The case found its way from the lawyers to the surgeons; the latter obtained his pardon, and took off the tumour. John Hunter was the operator; the man, his offence not having been of a very heinous kind, though the indiscriminating laws made it at that time capital, was taken into his service, and used to show his own wen in his master's museum; it was the largest from which any person had ever been relieved. The fate of the poor Chinese who underwent a similar operation in London with a different result, is fresh in remembrance and will long be remembered. The operation was made a public exhibition for medical students, instead of being performed with all circumstances that could tend to soothe the patient; and to the consequent heat of a crowded room, and partly perhaps to the excitement which such an assemblage occasioned in the object of their curiosity, the fatal termination was with too much probability imputed. We may be sure that no such hazardous operation will ever again be performed in this country in the same public manner. The remarks which were called forth on that occasion are proofs of the great improvement in general feeling upon such points, that has taken place in modern times. In the reign of Louis XI. a franc-archer of Meudon was condemned to be hanged for robbery and sacrilege; he appealed to the Court of Parliament, but that Court confirmed the sentence, and remanded him to the Provost of Paris for execution. The appeal however seems to have brought the man into notice, and as he happened to afford a surgical case as well as a criminal one, the surgeons and physicians of the French capital petitioned the King for leave to operate upon him. They represented that many persons were afflicted with the stone and other internal disorders; that the case of this criminal resembled that of the Sieur de Bouchage who was then lying dangerously ill; it was much to be desired for his sake that the inside of a living man should be inspected, and no better subject could have occurred than this franc-archer who was under sentence of death. This application was made at the instance of Germaine Colot, a practitioner who had learned his art under one of the Norsini, a Milanese family of itinerant surgeons, celebrated during several generations for their skill in lithotomy. Whether the criminal had his option of being hanged, or opened alive, is not stated; but Monstrelet by whom the fact is recorded, says that permission was granted, that the surgeons and physicians opened him, inspected his bowels, replaced