Some interesting observations relating to the surgical treatment of wounds by birds were recently brought by M. Fatio before the Physical Society of Geneva. He quotes the case of the snipe, which he has often observed engaged in repairing damages. With its beak and feathers it makes a very creditable dressing, applying plasters to bleeding wounds, and even securing a broken limb by means of a stout ligature. On one occasion he killed a snipe which had on the chest a large dressing composed of down taken from other parts of the body, and securely fixed to the wound by the coagulated blood. Twice he has brought home snipe with interwoven feathers strapped on to the site of fracture of one or other limb. The most interesting example was that of a snipe, both of whose legs he had unfortunately broken by a misdirected shot. He recovered the animal only the day following, and he then found that the poor bird had contrived to apply dressings and a sort of splint to both limbs. In carrying out this operation, some feathers had become entangled around the beak, and, not being able to use its claws to get rid of them, it was almost dead from hunger when discovered. In a case recorded by M. Magnin, a snipe, which was observed to fly away with a broken leg, was subsequently found to have forced the fragments into a parallel position, the upper fragment reaching to the knee, and secured them there by means of a strong band of feathers and moss intermingled. The observers were particularly struck by the application of a ligature of a kind of flat-leafed grass wound round the limb in a spiral form, and fixed by means of a sort of glue. Le Clerc thought that the stories of animals teaching men the use of plants, herbs, etc., meant that men tried them first upon animals before using them for food or medicine. There is no probability of this having been so. If men had observed with Linnæus that horses eat aconite with impunity, and had in consequence eaten it themselves, the result would have been fatal. Birds and herbivorous animals eat belladonna with impunity,[8] and it has very little effect on horses and donkeys. Goats, sheep, and horses are said by Dr. Ringer to eat hemlock without ill effects, yet it poisoned Socrates. Henbane has little or no effect on sheep, cows, and pigs. Ipecacuanha does not cause vomiting in rabbits,[9] and so on. Probably from the earliest times man would be led to observe the behaviour of animals when suffering from disease or injury. If he could not learn much from them in the way of medicine, they could teach him many useful arts. In savage man we must seek the beginnings of our civilization, and it is in the lowest tribes and those which have not yet felt the influences of superior races that we must search for the most primitive forms of medical ideas and the earliest theories and treatment of disease.