IN an address recently delivered before the Royal Society of Medicine (Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 33, 145; 1940) Dr. George Edwards gives an interesting account of Philip Syng Physick, “the father of American surgery”. He was born on July 7, 1768, at Philadelphia, where he graduated in the Faculty of Arts at the age of seventeen. In 1788 his father, who was receiver-general of the Colony of Philadelphia, took him to London, where he became a student at St. George's Hospital and served first as a dresser and then as house surgeon to John Hunter. In 1790 he received the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the following year he went to Edinburgh, where he obtained his doctorate with a thesis on apoplexy, which he dedicated to John Hunter. In 1792 he returned to Philadelphia, and two years later was appointed to the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital and that of the Philadelphia Dispensary. He rapidly gained an extensive practice owing to his surgical skill, particularly in two operations, namely, enucleation of the lens, and removal of stones from the bladder. He devised several new operative methods and surgical instruments, including improved treatment of chronic ulcers, fractures and dislocations, the invention of a tonsillotome and of a forceps for controlling hæmorrhage, and various modifications of catheters.