My friend, Dr. Robert J. Gregg, of San Diego, has lately operated on a number of cases, the operation being perfectly painless, the little patients submitting to it and feeling no more pain than if it were having its toe-nails trimmed, the local anaesthesia being produced by the hypodermatic injection of cocaine. This procedure is now used to a considerable extent throughout the country, and it is a far safer and more comfortable performance than either etherizing or chloroforming, as the sudden and spasmodic filling of the lungs of young children--who will resist and hold their breath for a long time, then suddenly inhale--with anaesthetic vapor is almost unavoidable, having in two instances nearly lost two children from such an accident. Dr. G. W. Overall, in a late _Medical Record_, which is quoted in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ of February 21, 1891, gives the description of a very good and painless method of producing this local anaesthesia; for it need hardly be said that with a nervous, irritable child the introduction of the hypodermatic needle is as formidable an operation as either slitting or the Jewish operation. Dr. Overall is in the habit of holding a solution within the preputial cavity and then to introduce the needle in the mucous fold, having previously applied a light rubber band back of the corona, on the outer integument, so as to act like a tourniquet and limit the action of the anaesthetic effect to the prepuce. By this procedure he avoids all pain and the operation can be performed while the child is even amusing itself, care being taken that it does not see it. Sutures that require removal should not be used, according to the Doctor, and the operation thereby becomes a perfectly painless and unalarming performance to the patient in all its details. NOTES TO TEXT. [1] "Letters of Certain Jews to Monsieur Voltaire, Containing an Apology for their own People." Pages 451-476. Translated by Dr. Lefann. Philadelphia, 1848. [2] "Circoncision chez les Egyptiens." Brochure by F. Chabas. Paris, 1861. [3] "Atlantis." By Ignatius Donnelly. Page 472. [4] _Ibid._, page 115. [5] _Ibid._, page 234. [6] _Ibid._, page 178. [7] "Circumcision." A. B. Arnold. _New York Med. Record_, Feb. 13, 1886. [8] "Atlantis," page 178. [9] This word is, in the Mandan, _Maho-peneta_; in the Welsh, _Mawr-penaethir_. "Atlantis," page 115. [10] "Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature," vol. viii, page 58. Article, Phallus. [11] "Origine, Signification et Histoire, de la Castration, de l'eunuchism, et la circoncision." Par. F. Bergmann. Published in the "Archivio per le Traditione Populaire," 1883. [12] "Dictionaire des Sciences Medicales." Par une Societe de medecins et de Chirurgiens. Paris, 1826, 60-volume edition.