The effort to find a means of trustworthy sterilization of surgical instruments has been a particularly perplexing task to the oculist, in view of the extreme delicacy of most of the instruments used by him, and the subject has, perhaps, gone through more phases in his hands than has been the case even with the general surgeon. An ideal method has yet to be found, but the writer has been so much better satisfied with the results obtained by boiling instruments in distilled water, than by any other, that he feels impelled to go into a few brief details and comparisons with some other methods in the hope that others may avail themselves of this practice until better means can be developed. It is important to emphasize that by distilled water is not meant the product of wholesale vaporization so often masqueraded under that name, in this day of speed