The author offers here an eleven page compendium on psychiatric aspects of surgical practice which defies summarization. It is a paper crammed with data and practical techniques derived from clinical experiences. It will prove valuable and stimulating to anyone dealing with surgical patients. Section headings in the article are: Psychological Make-up of Patient and Presurgery Setting; Preoperative Reactions; Postoperative Reactions; Psychologic and Psychotherapeutic Aspects of Mutilation; Untoward Reactions Toward Successful Surgery; Problems in Diagnosis; Interpersonal Relationships of Medical Personnel. The author calls upon all medical personnel who deal with surgical patients to avoid leaving 'the patient-as-person … threatened with extinction by fragmentation, leaving behind him an odd assortment of calibrated readings, metaplastic cells, radioactive isotopes, and several feet of glass tubing which, assembled in whatever combinations imaginable, fail to add up to a recognizable facsimile of man'.