who is called to treat inflammation in the later stage of fever is in the position of the man who arrives with the apparatus for saving the house when its stories have been already consumed and its roof has fallen in. Bleeding in fever cannot be performed too early. The very first moment of excitement, could that be discovered, is precisely the moment when the employment of this powerful remedy would produce the greatest effect. The earlier the bleeding, the greater will be the impression made upon the disease, and the less upon the patient; or, the more effectually will the inflammatory action be stopped by the loss of the smallest quantity of blood. When inflammation has actually come on, there is then not a moment to be lost; that inflammation must be stopped; the accomplishment of this object is the great end which the practitioner should aim at in every thing he attempts; until he has done this he has done nothing; until he has done this he ought to give neither sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eye-lids; until he has done this he ought to feel that there should be no rest for himself, because there is no safety for his patient. Until the inflammation is subdued blood must be taken; be the quantity it may be necessary to abstract, in order to accomplish this object, what it may; be the bleedings it may be requisite to repeat what they may; the vein must be allowed to flow, and it must be opened again and again until this object is secured. If this golden opportunity be allowed to escape, and this object be not obtained, the risk is most imminent. During this early period the physician is master over the disease; if he allow it to pass away without obtaining the victory, the disease becomes master over the physician. From that moment his control over it is gone. Never can he regain his lost advantage. Fever is a process that advances with a step as steady as time, and like time it never retraces a step. At a subsequent period its progress may be sometimes retarded, and now and then it may be weakened; but, after the lapse of a few days, this is all which the most complete success is then capable of accomplishing. Mere relief of inflammation is nothing; to render a severe inflammation a less severe inflammation is to do nothing; because the less severe inflammation may be fatal just as certainly as the more severe: the inflammation must be subdued, or the case, if not wholly lost, becomes dangerous and doubtful.