Were D. Todd Gilliam, to whose memory this lectureship is dedicated, living today, he would no doubt be spoken of, and perhaps rather patronizingly, as belonging to the older school of gynecologists. And yet his generation established and maintained gynecology as an important specialty, while today we not infrequently hear expressed the fear that our specialty will sooner or later be absorbed by general surgery. If gynecology is looked on as merely gynecologic surgery, this fear is not unlikely to be materialized. But if it is regarded as embracing also a knowledge of the special anatomy, physiology and pathology of the female reproductive organs, it will constitute a bolus much too large to be swallowed and assimilated by general surgery. No gynecologist today can consider himself thoroughly equipped unless he is well grounded in these fundamental aspects of his work. This is perhaps particularly true of the physiologic aspect, which