'Observations on 143 children undergoing T. & A. showed that the operation was an important and stressful experience for each child, activating the great childhood fears—of abandonment, of mutilation, and of death; and that it stirred up fantasies of transformation and of getting a baby. Most children were able to integrate the experience as far as we could follow them, but this does not exclude the possibility of a delayed reaction or later reactivation.' For some children the operation became a constructive experience. The effect of hospitalization is fully discussed.