I have always respected the idea of ancestral worship and of reverence for the dead past, but at the same time I have felt that one should not be wholly oblivious to their egregious mistakes. If Moses, Samuel, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Galen, and other illustrious men had said that “emeroids” is a symptom of a disease, what a blessing they would have conferred upon suffering humanity. The simple use of that one word would have been illuminating, and would have set the tide of attention for the proper diagnosis and treatment in the right direction. Possibly some one more bold than the servile brotherhood did see and say that it was a mere symptom, but, if so, his temerity was treated by “the wise ones” of that day as similar innovations are treated to-day, with a “Tut, tut, tut; pugh, pugh, pugh. We know better, and we refer you to the following chapters in Holy Writ and to the classical work of the great Medi Cusus on ‘Pilus Diseasicus.’ And besides, have you no respect for the superior clinical advantages we enjoy?” Notwithstanding the bad odor in which I shall be held, I will nerve myself to claim that, when the ancients considered and called piles or hemorrhoids a disease, they made a very grave and palpable mistake, and that, having made this mistake, it was inevitable that numerous errors should follow logically in its train when they attempted to account for the etiology, character, and means of cure of this “disease.” Pruritus ani is also called a disease, and a similar bedlam of reasons is offered as causes and means of cure, all of which accounts for the many, many pages of a book filled to overflowing by a “classical” author, with compilations of the redeeming gospel truths on this subject from prehistoric times till the present day, including his own commentary, guesses, interpretations, and surmises. Ignorant as he is of the nature of this symptom, the conjectures of his perfervid imagination are “to laugh.” The errors of one or more authors, endorsed by the mistakes of others, seemingly make a truth to minds that are vassals to authority, which accounts for much of the useless medical literature of to-day and for the mistakes of those that are misguided by it. Considering the pathological condition, it would be better if we were to give a more definitive characterization to it than “piles” or “hemorrhoids.” In accordance with the distinctive exhibit contemplated, we should describe it as a rectal mucous sac, an ano-rectal mucous sac, or an ano-muco-cutaneous sac. These are more distinctive and suitable designations for these symptoms of chronic proctitis, inasmuch, by such designations, we call attention to the fact that they are simply constricted mucus[3] channels and sacs, with engorged arteries and veins, formed by the serous exudation that accompanies inflammation.