It is a time honored custom in all organizations such as ours, that the retiring president deliver an address to his Fellows on some subject, or subjects, of mutual interest. I feel that it would show base ingratitude on my part, in return for the honor you have done an humble worker in our specialty by electing me your presiding officer, to inflict upon you a long dry discourse on matters with which you are more familiar than am I. Instead, therefore, inasmuch as this is the age of expansion and enlargement and healthy growth, I wish to present a few thoughts on the subject of Proctology come into its own.

Since the organization of this Society some fifteen years ago, the fields of labor and endeavor on the part of the medical profession have been many and varied. One of the largest of these fields, up to the last few years, has been scarcely tilled at all.

The digestive system is subjected to more opportunities for pathologic changes in its anatomy and physiology than any other, and on account of the very nature of its function the eliminative portion of the gastro-intestinal canal is particularly prone to pathologic interference.