The past decade has seen the development of an extensive literature on preoperative and postoperative treatment, and doubtless the advances in the postoperative management of surgical patients the surgeon owes in large measure to the physiologist and to the maintenance of better hospital records. No other single volume has so completely and so accurately covered these subjects and left so little in dispute. Beginning with methods of appraisal of operative risks, surgical patients with heart disease, hypertension, nephritis, diabetes, choice of anesthesia, and general methods of preoperative preparation, the author devotes the bulk of the volume to postoperative therapy. Of particular significance are chapters on shock, blood transfusion, water balance, acidosis and alkalosis, paralytic ileus, disruption of the abdominal wound and postoperative peritonitis. One recognizes a sound understanding of and defference for physiologic principles, particularly in the chapters on water balance, acidosis, shock and similar problems involving physiologic chemistry. There