With traumatisms surgery alone is mainly concerned, but its conceded scope is now widened to include an ever-increasing number of morbid conditions, which, in time past, were treated medicinally--or not at all. Thus it has come to pass that it is no longer possible to make an abrupt distinction between medicine and surgery, nor even briefly to define the words “surgery” and “surgeon,” nor yet to ascribe to either the physician or the surgeon his exact functions as such. In centuries past physicians were exceedingly jealous of their vested rights, and with propriety, when the only surgeons were uneducated barbers. But about one hundred years ago conditions were materially altered for the better, and surgery, liberated from its medieval environment, and from the restrictions imposed by the clergy, rapidly developed into both a science and an art, while the surgeon came to take that position in society to which his increasing attainments entitled him. During the past thirty years surgery, thanks to earnest workers in the surgical laboratories of the world, has made progress scarcely equalled by the science of electricity, and the impossibilities of yesterday have become the routine of today. Thus has come about the earlier separation, and now, in some respects at least, the closer appreciation of the respective scope and functions of the physician and the surgeon. Between them lies yet what has been felicitously called the “borderland,” where they meet on common ground, too often as rivals and not often enough as co-workers. Nowhere do comprehensive knowledge, wide experience, and trained judgment appear to better advantage, nor lead to better results, than when exhibited where co-operation in these respects is most hearty. Someone has most happily said that “the surgeon is a physician who knows how to use his hands,” yet to regard a course in surgery as one in manual training would be a most lamentable conception of its purposes. Rather is it to be regarded as a superstructure, to be built upon a thorough familiarity with anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics. In fact, the better general practitioner a man is, the better surgeon may he thereby become, providing he possess the other necessary attributes. John Hunter took this view, but too many since his day have forgotten or never realized it.