As to the pains and bowel and bladder disturbances, their handling will be discussed in considering the treatment of the next or middle stage of tabes. In this period the ataxic symptoms are most prominent; the gait has become so unsteady that the patient needs canes to walk at all and must constantly watch his feet. He walks a little better when well under way, but at starting or when standing still he sways and totters. The girdle-sense is severe and constant, various pains assail the body and limbs; the numbness of the feet, often described as a feeling "like walking with a pillow under the foot," still further incommodes his walking.[30] The bladder control may be so enfeebled as to require daily catheterization, and the bowels move only with enemas or purgatives, and often without the patient's knowledge, owing to the anæsthesia which affects the rectum and its vicinity. One of the first things to attend to when patients are in this stage is the bladder, as the retention is the only condition likely to produce serious disorder. Cystitis is or may be present, and with the retention is a constant threat to the kidneys. Catheterization and washing out with an antiseptic must be regularly practised while treatment is used to improve the condition. For these patients rest in bed is a prime necessity in order to remove all excuse for exertion. The method of application of massage has already been suggested. Care must be taken that the patient eats well and of the best food. Except for occasional gastric or intestinal crises of pain, sometimes with vomiting, sometimes with diarrhoea, the digestive functions are usually well performed, unless the stomach has been greatly upset by over-use of iodide. The most liberal feeding consistent with good digestion is indicated, for it must be remembered that we are dealing with a disease in which degenerative changes play an important part. The usefulness of electricity in ataxia has been denied by some authors, while others praise it indiscriminately. Perhaps a reason for this difference of opinion may be found in its different effects upon individual patients; but I see few in whom I do not find electricity in one or another form helpful. For pains I order the galvanic current through the affected nerves as strong as the man is able to bear. If after a few days of this the pains are unchanged, a rapidly interrupted faradic current is tried, and failing to do good with this, I use light cauterization or a series of small blisters to the spine at the point of exit of the painful nerves. Galvanization of the bladder with an intravesical electrode is sometimes of service to strengthen its capacity for contraction. Faradism is applied in the form just described, using a wire brush as an electrode to the areas of numbness and anæsthesia. Lately I have found that this current in a strength which would be very painful to the normal skin will in some