AMPUTATIONS IN THE LIGHT OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE.Read in the Section of Surgery and Anatomy at the Forty-third annual meeting of the American Medical Association, held at Detroit, Mich,, June, 1892.

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Dr. Oscar H. Allis, in his paper before the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, June 4, 1891, said: "Don't amputate through the joint; go above or below it," Such a statement by a surgeon of such thoughtfulness and eminence must necessarily carry with it a vast majority of men who amputate, but who allow other men to do their thinking. No one, of course, would for a moment suspect Dr. Allis of making such a statement unless he believed it, and such a conclusion could only be the result of a thorough investigation of the prothegenetic as well as of the mechanical phases of the question.

After having made a study of the matter for the past number of years, I am compelled to make the statement that joint amputations afford the best stumps, and no surgeon is justified in going three inches above the ankle and knee, as the limb