The same therapeutic principle should guide us in the management of a pelvic abscess that we would unhesitatingly apply in the treatment of an abscess in any other portion of the body. It is a settled law in surgery that if a pus-cavity is evacuated and not allowed to burrow, much tissue may be saved, the duration of the disease shortened, and the prognosis rendered more favorable. I believe that the pus should be liberated promptly as soon as it is certain that an abscess has been formed and can be reached without danger to important structures--emphatically so when the way is being pointed out. True, Nature is competent in some instances to discharge the accumulation, and usually by the least dangerous channel. But it is also true that in many other cases she is not. Instead of taking the shortest, most direct, and safest course to the surface, the pus frequently takes the most indirect route, riddling and destroying the tissues in its track; or it may rupture into the bladder or peritoneal cavity, in the latter case to be followed by death from peritonitis. Evacuation of the pus by artificial means when the way has been shown, if done carefully by aspiration, is attended with almost no danger. Where, on the other hand, the abscess is deeply seated and there is no tendency toward pointing, the question of evacuation becomes one requiring great deliberation; for the dangers of puncture increase as the thickness of the tissues to be traversed in reaching the abscess is greater. But, even though the pus be deeply located, when a positive diagnosis of its presence can be made I still favor early evacuation. Mere exploratory puncture in the hope of finding pus is a most dangerous practice, and should not be thought of in connection with pelvic abscess. Delay, even at the risk of spontaneous rupture, is the proper course until the diagnosis can be rendered positive; for when the abscess is deep-seated the progress of the disease is often slow. Of course the condition of the patient should always be taken into account in deciding the question whether or not to interfere. If signs of septic absorption appear, or evidences of constitutional failure become prominent in spite of the means used for staying the progress of the disease, prompt measures must be taken to get rid of the product of the inflammation. The strongest argument in favor of early operative evacuation of the abscess is the danger that the disease may become chronic when the pus is not promptly discharged. Many cases have occurred in which abscess after abscess had been formed and discharged, until the patient became a mere wreck of her former self, and finally died from septicæmia or exhaustion. This is the result of non-interference. I am so fully convinced of the value and necessity of operative measures in the treatment of pelvic abscess that the following questions at once present themselves to me when called upon to decide in a case where