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Nearly ready for publication, the proofs partially corrected by Sir William, the great war interrupted the final correction and completion of this volume. The work was completed by Fielding H. Garrison, Harvey Cushing, Edward P. Streeter, and Leonard L. Mackall, who have carried out the author's plans and wishes in every respect. The volume represents Osler at his best—not only as a physician but as a scholar, a man of letters and an historian—while the publishers have achieved a setting worthy of the content. Composed originally for a lay audience and popular consumption, it will furnish inspiration to physicians as well, tracing as it does the devious course of medical progress and struggle to the present, and one needs no medical knowledge to follow the golden thread. In the introduction he considers Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Oriental medicine, with evidence of early operative and therapeutic procedures and directions. Then Greek