The operation of laminectomy has become so well standardized that one feels a certain hesitancy in presenting modifications. However, the technic that I have employed during the past few years has been found rather simpler than that of methods previously described, so that a description of it appears warranted. Briefly, the essential point lies in the fact that instead of stripping the soft parts and the periosteum from the posterior vertebral spines on either side and then cutting off the spines at their bases, the spines are split longitudinally into right and left halves, just as in the Albee operation for insertion of a bone transplant in Pott's disease. However, instead of deflecting the halves on one side only, as in the Albee technic, the split halves are deflected on both sides. It is then a very simple matter to separate the periosteum with attached soft parts from the laminae