Some surgeons have disapproved of long incisions, alleging that they are tedious in healing, and prefer making numerous small ones; but it is difficult to understand how the cure should be more tedious in the one case than in the other, when the actual extent of divided surface is the same. According to my experience, several free incisions are made with less pain than a number of trifling scratches, and heal as soon, whilst by the former the purpose of the practitioner is much better fulfilled: the same good effects result from them as from punctures in the more slight cases, if they are made at the commencement of the disease; and if the affection is in its advanced stage, the effused fluid, and the sloughs, are discharged, and the infiltration of pus, and destruction of parts in consequence of the matter being confined, are prevented by its being allowed a free exit as soon as it is formed. Incisions then are made both in the early stage of the disease, and after effusion has occurred: in the former case, they are justifiable, because they arrest its progress; in the latter, they are absolutely necessary, to prevent its injurious effects. The parts are to be fomented, and afterwards covered with a common poultice, containing no oil or grease, or with soft lint saturated with tepid water, and covered with oiled silk, to prevent evaporation. When the erysipelas has gone off, the incisions are treated as common wounds, by dressing and bandage. After punctures, or incisions, more or less blood is allowed to flow, according to circumstances. It often escapes from the vessels of the part in great profusion; this, in many cases, may be prejudicial or excessively dangerous. In the extremities the flow can readily be arrested by elevation of the part, or by pressure, for a short period. In erysipelas of the face, punctures are preferable to incisions, as by the employment of the former the countenance is no way disfigured; if, however, in erysipelas of the scalp, the integuments become swollen, and present a puffy feeling, whilst at the same time cerebral symptoms supervene, free incision or incisions, through the whole thickness of the covering, and in the direction of the fibres, must be made. If erysipelas be thus actively treated, it may be safely affirmed that the disease will not often, unless accompanied with symptoms of putrid fever, terminate fatally; if these means are employed early, the constitutional disturbance will be modified or prevented, and no derangement of the cerebral functions will ensue.