The story of surgery itself and what it has done in modern warfare would make a wonderful volume. The shattered bones of the legs and arms have been spliced, and laid side by side in open wounds, to knit together and practically form a new limb. Artificial hands, feet, and legs have been made by ingenious mechanics, which are so perfect that those who have been deprived of their natural facilities can use them with a degree of facility never before believed possible. RESULT OF SCIENTIFIC SURGERY. Armless men and legless men have worked in the munition factories of both France and of England, and the fact that they are able to do so is due to the genius of surgeons and of scientists. Thoroughness and preparation, coolness in execution and scientific accuracy in all directions is the modern necessity in warfare. What this means in modern battle, as demonstrated in the last important conflict in the clearing of German East Africa by British forces, was described by Reuters' correspondent in an account of the battle of Rufiji River. This was the last campaign personally commanded by Major General Jan Christian Smuts, the former Boer commander, and resulted in giving the British control of all the coastline and the inhabitable portion of German East Africa. For two weary months the army lay upon its weapons, consolidating, reorganizing, rebuilding railway lines and piling up great dumps of food and ridding itself of its sick and wounded. Then it moved forward from Morogoro. The object of the advance was the ejection of the enemy from his trenches on the Mgeta River and the seizure of the passages of the Rufiji River. The battle was directed and controlled from an observation hill at Dathumi, but General Smuts spent little time on the hill. He had made all the dispositions and issued his orders. Nothing remained for him to do and he was back in his camp calmly reading a book. In the straw hut the brigadier general sat at a table on which was an oriented map showing the strategic and geographical points of the plans which lay before us, at his elbow the telephone and just below the hut the wireless instrument incessantly emitted sparks. Higher up the slope of the hill were the observing stations of the battery commanders. SIGNALED BEGINNING OF BATTLE. The burning of huts at Kiruru signaled the beginning of the battle. The brigadier general, a polite little man who has lectured at the staff college for twenty years and who knows the last word in the science of warfare, especially of artillery, called the howitzer battery by telephone. "Open fire a little to the right of the palm tree," he said. "You have the elevation and direction. The Nigerians will be on the move." Just behind the palm tree and a little to the right a great brown cloud of mud and smoke rose high in the air. From the plain came the boom of heavy guns and all along the river branch rose clouds of smoke, mud and dust.