It was only a few years ago that prostatectomy was considered one of the dangerous operations in surgery, but in recent years remarkable advances have been made in the treatment of cases of prostatic hypertrophy. Writing in 1900 Fuller said: "The mortality attached to prostatectomy at the hands of surgeons skilled in that particular is at the present time in the neighborhood of 15 per cent, to 18 per cent." Within four years, however, the mortality rate had been decidedly lessened and Watson1was able to collect from the literature 243 cases of suprapubic prostatectomy with 11.3 per cent. mortality; 530 cases of perineal prostatectomy with 6.2 per cent, mortality, and 1,086 cases treated by the Bottini operation with 6.3 per cent, mortality. Escat2in 1904 collected 382 cases of perineal prostatectomy with a mortality of 11 per cent. and 164 cases of suprapubic prostatectomy with a mortality