This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables. A clinic for the study of whitlow was started at University College Hospital at the end of 1933. The patients seen at the clinic, which is held once a week, are referred from the casualty department because of minor injury of the hand and whitlow, the latter being defined as a focal infection of the hand. The function of the clinic is advisory, treatment remaining in the hands of the casualty officers. INCIDENCE In the three years from 1934 to 1936, inclusive, 41,474 patients were seen in the surgical division of the casualty department. Of this number, 388 patients had infection or injury of the hand, that is, such patients account for just under 1 per cent of the patients in the surgical division of the casualty department (table 1). The slight rise in the incidence of such disorders in 1936 is probably due to the greater care now taken