authorities are not wanting who hold that suction or depletion increases the danger of haemorrhage. It can be understood that the results of suction would be in some measure analogous to those left by the application of an Esmarch bandage on a limb. The ancients, performing the operation with rude implements and having no haemostatic remedies or appliances, naturally followed the best means at their command; they evidently feared haemorrhage, and their rule in regard to exemption shows us that they recognized the existence of haemorrhagic diathesis or other transmissible peculiarities of constitution. This same fear of haemorrhage probably suggested the second step of the operation being performed, as it is by laceration instead of by cutting instruments, showing in this an evident desire to limit the cutting part of the operation to as small a limit as possible. Against an infant who has decided haemorrhagic tendency, we are about as helpless as were the ancient Hebrews, and, while the Turkish or some of the Arabian methods of performing the operation may be said in ordinary cases--by the application of cord and the consequent constriction--to limit the danger from subsequent haemorrhage, still, in the haemorrhagic diathesis this would not be of any avail; so, as already observed, we must not too rashly judge those old shepherds of the Armenian plains for adopting a practice which to them was calculated to avert subsequent dangers, or their descendants following in their footsteps, until having learned better, even if that practice is to us disgusting, primitive, and useless.