38 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER CHAP. 



with the activities by which he won fame later. He 

 was a rising young surgeon, and while specialising 

 from the speculative side in Comparative Anatomy, 

 was marking the beginning of what promised to be 

 a brilliant career in the active exercise of his pro- 

 fession. He acquired a reputation as a successful 

 operator, especially in affections of the eye. He 

 had, as might be expected from his physique and 

 equable temperament, the steady and yet fine hand 

 necessary for such delicate work. Before five years 

 had passed, and when it became a question whether 

 he should divert his energies from surgery to pure 

 science, he was assured by one of those most 

 competent to judge, that he " could make more 

 thousands as a surgeon than he ever would hundreds 

 as a man of science." But the accumulation of 

 money had no great attraction for Flower at any 

 time as the chief end in life. At this time he pub- 

 lished some original observations on the Injuries of 

 the Upper Extremities, in Holmes' System of Surgery, 

 in which he incorporated his own researches on the 

 various dislocations of the shoulder joint. His 

 diagrams illustrating certain of these became 

 standard illustrations in text-books, and are familiar 

 to most of those who have studied injuries to bones. 

 While continuing his regular work at the Hospital 

 he gave effect to some of the impressions left on 

 him by the war. He had learnt by experience 

 that military surgery was ill-taught in the United 

 Kingdom. Men suffering from frightful injuries, 



