In a large institution, relieving several thousand patients annually, and in which, a very few years before, scarcely a day passed without several persons having been bled; nearly a month elapsed without a single bleeding having been prescribed by either of the three medical officers. No doubt many persons are still bled without any very satisfactory reason; but we believe that the abuse of bleeding is much diminished, and that the practice is much more discriminate and judicious. From this, and perhaps other causes, a very important class of cases which engaged the attention of Abernethy, as it had that of Hunter before him, is become comparatively infrequent. When bleeding, however, was practised, with as little idea of its importance as some other of the barber-surgeon's ministrations, on all sorts of people, and in all sorts of disturbed states of health, and probably with no attention at all to the principles which should alike guide the treatment of the largest or the smallest wound; this little operation was frequently followed by inflammation of the vein, nerve, or other contiguous structures. These cases were, most of them, more or less serious, often dangerous, and occasionally fatal. Taking up the subject where it had been left by Mr. Hunter, Abernethy refers to the cases published in the two volumes of the "Medical Communications," by Mr. Colly of Torrington, and by Mr. Wilson, and then proceeds to give some of his own. It is in this paper that he first moots two questions which have since grown into importance, by an extension of some of the practices to which they refer. We allude to the division of fasciæ, and tendinous structures, and also of nerves in states of disease or disorder. In many cases we see, in the application of such measures, how much that clear and quick-sighted discrimination is required which so eminently distinguished Abernethy. He, however, only _mooted_ these questions at that time; for he observes that he had not had sufficient experience to give an opinion. The chief value of the paper _now_ is, the good sense with which it inculcates a more careful and cleanly performance of bleeding; a more scientific treatment of the puncture, by neatly bringing its edges into apposition, and by keeping the _arm quiet_ until it has healed. Neglect of these cautions in disordered states of constitution, had no doubt been not infrequently accessory to the production of some of the serious consequences against which it is the object of this paper to guard. I need scarcely observe that the whole subject is important, and should be thoroughly studied by the young surgeon.