When the cavity has been filled with the cotton balls carrying the chloride of zinc, a large vaginal tampon of cotton well greased with the alkaline ointment should be placed in the vaginal vault. The packing should be removed from the vagina in forty-eight hours, and vaginal douches of bichloride of mercury, 1:4000, should be administered. If this operation is carefully performed, the subsequent pain is usually slight. In some cases, however, the action of the caustic may be so painful that morphine is required. The slough from the caustic may be discharged in one piece or in shreds. It is usually separated in from five to ten days. The subsequent treatment of the woman consists in the frequent use of cleansing vaginal douches, such as a solution of bichloride of mercury (1:4000), carbolic acid (3 per cent. solution), permanganate of potash (10 grains to the ounce of water), and peroxide of hydrogen (1 part of the commercial peroxide to 3 or 4 parts of water). The palliative treatment of cancer relieves the pain, the hemorrhage, and the discharge. The relief is usually immediate, and may continue throughout the disease. The hemorrhage is usually arrested for several weeks, or even for months, and the discharge is much diminished with the destruction of the necrotic cancerous mass. The progress of the disease is delayed, and life is somewhat prolonged. CHAPTER XVII. DISEASES OF THE BODY OF THE UTERUS. ACUTE CORPOREAL ENDOMETRITIS. Acute inflammation of the mucous membrane of the body of the uterus is called acute corporeal endometritis. The disease is usually the result of septic infection occurring at a labor or a miscarriage. Occasionally acute gonorrheal endometritis is seen, but this disease usually produces an inflammation of the mucous membrane of the cervix and the body of the uterus that is chronic or subacute from the beginning. Septic infection through operative traumatism, through the use of the uterine sound, or through other gynecological methods of examination may, of course, result in acute endometritis. The pathological changes that take place in an endometrium that is the seat of acute inflammation resemble those seen in acute inflammation of mucous membranes of other parts of the body. The secretion of the utricular glands becomes much increased in quantity and altered in character, becoming purulent and sometimes containing blood. As would be expected, whenever the inflammation is at all severe the middle or muscular coat of the uterus is involved by the process; in other words, a _metritis_ follows and accompanies the endometritis. In puerperal metritis abscesses varying in size from a pin-head to that of a hen’s egg are sometimes found in the uterine wall. The septic infection may extend through the muscular wall of the uterus and involve the peritoneal covering, producing in this way a _perimetritis_.