The human body is an attic of antiquities, some of them more and some less recently discarded. The vermiform appendix has been relegated to the attic within comparatively recent times, while Meckel's diverticulum belongs to the remote antiquity of the race and to the earliest days of the individual. These discarded structures are a constant menace, and may start a conflagration in the structure at any moment. The fact that the vitellin duct, of which Meckel's diverticulum is a remnant, has but a slight and early function in the development of the human fetus is no doubt responsible for its infrequent persistence as compared with that of the veriform appendix, which is always present. Articles on the subject of Meckel's diverticulum usually state that it is present in two per cent, of individuals, one writer seeming to quote the statement from others. It seems to me that two per cent,