I have applied arsenic to the skin for twenty-four hours, with no other effect than irritation, and an eruption of pimples, the sensibility of the part being increased; and in my opinion, arsenic would not cause insensibility, unless it were applied so long that the inflammation caused by it should end in gangrene. I consider that the statement of Theodoric, respecting arsenic, strengthens the doubts I have expressed concerning his spongia somnifera. There is another reason for disputing the efficiency of the above mentioned recipes. Theodoric directs the patients about to undergo operations to be tied, or held by strong men. In the operation for hernia, for instance, he directs the patient to be tied to the bench, or table, with three bands, one round the ankles, another round the thighs, and a third across the chest, holding the arms and hands. This circumstance is the more significant, since Theodoric had lived some time with Hugo, and seen his practice, as he states in the dedication to his work. It is reasonable also to conclude that if any successful plan of preventing the pain of surgical operations had been introduced after the revival of literature, it would not have fallen into disuse and been forgotten. In an interesting paper by Dr. Silvester,[16] an anecdote is quoted, with an intention to show that anæsthetics were commonly had recourse to in severe operations as late as the end of the seventeenth century. The quotation is from a German work by A. G. Meissner, called _Skizzen_, or Sketches, and published at Carlsruhe in 1782. It is as follows:— “Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, suffered from a wound in his foot, which threatened to mortify. The court medical men were opposed to the operation of amputation; but during sleep, induced by a certain potion surreptitiously administered, his favourite surgeon, Weiss, a pupil of Petit, of Paris, cut off the decaying parts. The royal patient was disturbed by the proceeding, and inquired what was being done, but on receiving a soothing answer he again fell asleep, and did not discover till the following morning, after his usual examination, that the operation of amputation had really been performed.” It is most probable that the potion surreptitiously administered in this case, was an ordinary sleeping draught, and that only the “decaying parts” were cut off, as in fact is stated. The decaying parts of course would be without feeling. The mind of surgeons seems now and then to have turned spontaneously towards preventing or alleviating the pain of operations, and certain attempts and suggestions were made with this object during the later part of the last century, in apparent ignorance of what had been done by the ancients in this direction.