In recent years a great deal of attention has been focused on the importance in human surgery of asepsis and antibiotic therapy. This emphasis is entirely justifiable and there is no doubt that it has had a wholesome effect on veterinary surgery. Nevertheless, along with this trend, there has developed a tendency to minimize the importance of the mechanical aspects of surgery. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century the success of surgery depended almost wholly on mechanical excellence. Today much space in current medical periodicals is devoted to aseptic technique and antibiotic. treatment. But asepsis and antibiotics have not replaced or superceded mechanical excellence; they have only supplemented it. This presentation will deal briefly with some of the more basic aspects of surgery: mechanical factors which influence the healing of wounds.