On Some Points in the Surgical Physiology of the Abdomen and Pelvis *Resumé of an unwritten address delivered to the Gloucestershire Branch of the British Medical Association.

Physiology, or?as it is still called in Scotland?the Institutes of Medicine, has been too much regarded as bearing only, or mainly, on medical practice. Surgical Anatomy is an expression very familiar; Surgical Pathology hardly less so; and even Surgical Bacteriology is the title of a book; but the words Surgical Physiology are now, so far as I am aware, for the first time linked together. And yet illustrations are abundant, literally from the head to the foot, of the close relation between the study of function and the practice of surgery. The surgery of the brain depends on accurate knowledge of the functions of that organ in its different parts. So, also, much of the wide domain of ophthalmic surgery is closely related to the functions of the eye. And, if I may be permitted to refer to work of my own, I have shown that deformities of the foot are due to failure of function, and that by renewal of it, in specially marked degree, restoration of form will result. It was my good fortune to receive my physiology at the hands of a surgeon : the teaching of Sir James Paget, in his lectures at St. Bartholomew's, has, I am sure, had a life-long influence on my habit of thought, more than I have at all times been conscious of.