For a number of years I have had it in mind to call attention to the particular method of employing silk ligatures and sutures which has been practiced in the surgical clinic of the Johns Hopkins University since the opening of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889, but have hesitated and also been eager to do so for the same reason, namely, that our school seems to be almost alone in its advocacy of the use of this material. Theodor Kocher, however, has for many years employed silk quite to the exclusion of catgut and our position is greatly strengthened by the support of such eminent authority. Surgeons, old and young, those who have been active and masterful in the marvelous period of development of antiseptic surgery, and the medical student who takes for granted the healing of woundsper primamand the achievements of modern surgery as he does