_Esophagoscopic bouginage_ with the author's silk-woven steel-shank endoscopic bougies (Fig. 40) has proven the safest and most successful method of treatment. The strictured lumen is to be centered in the esophagoscopic field, and three successively increasing sizes of bougies are used under direct vision. Larger and larger bougies are used at the successive treatments which are given at intervals of from four to seven days. No anesthesia, general or local, is used for esophagoscopic bouginage. The tightness of the grasping of the bougie by the stricture on withdrawal, determines the limitation of sizes to be used. When the upper stricture is dilated, lower ones in the series are taken seriatim. If concentric, two or more closely situated strictures may be simultaneously dilated. For the use of bougies of the larger sizes, the special esophagoscopes with both the light-carrier canal and the drainage canal outside the lumen of the tube are needed. Functional cure is obtained with a relatively small lumen at the point of stenosis. A lumen of 7 mm. will allow the passage of any well masticated food. It is unwise and unsafe to attempt to restore the lumen to its normal anatomic size. In cicatricial stricture cases it is advisable to examine the esophagus at monthly periods for a time after a functional cure has been obtained, in order that tendency to recurrence may be early detected. _Divulsion_ of an upper stricture may be deemed advisable in order to reach others lower down, especially in cases of multiple eccentric strictures (Fig. 97). This procedure is best done with the author's esophagoscopic divulser, accurately placed by means of the esophagoscope; but divulsion requires the utmost care, and a gentle hand. Even then it is not so safe as esophagoscopic bouginage. _Internal esophagotomy_ by the string-cutting instruments and esophagotome are relatively dangerous methods, and perhaps yield in the end no quicker results than the slower and safe bouginage per tubam. _Electrolysis_ has been used with varying results in the treatment of cicatricial stenosis. _Thermic bouginage_ with electrically heated bougies has been found useful in some cases by Dean and Imperatori.