In presenting the growth of orthopedic surgery as a specialty, with a view to defining its present status, the author has used an interesting method, tracing the growth of the specialty through significant achievements by certain personalities. Each chapter concerns the life and work of some great physician who initiated an advance. Beginning with the orthopedic principles of John Hunter, chapters are devoted to Hilton, Thomas, Duhamel, Sayre and many others, including in each chapter pictures and biographic notes of the orthopedic surgeons whose work is discussed. The method is thus defined:
I have sought to guide the reader to the hospital wards, the physiological laboratories, the dissecting rooms, and private workrooms in which the great advances of orthopaedic surgery were made, and to introduce to them the "Menders of the Maimed" as they were in the heyday of life. In only this way, I conceive, can Medical History be