I have already alluded to the improved method I employ on finding it necessary to use escharotics. I can not better explain the process than by submitting a sketch of the instruments, whereby the mode of application will be instantly perceived. The instruments are made of silver. The figures represent No. 8 a curved, No. 9 a straightened, No. 10 ditto, with enlarged head, which puts the areola of the stricture on the stretch, and secures the central part for the application of the caustic, or whatever substance may be employed. The next kind of instruments are for the purposes of dividing or piercing hardened obstructions—one or two applications creating a passage which a hundred _cauterizings_ would not effect. When any styptic is applied to a morbid growth, its tendency is to create a slough, or to destroy the part whereto it is applied. In some instances a styptic actually promotes increased action: it may temporarily destroy the part; but the moment the effect is over, a reaction follows, and the excrescence is increased. Such is the case in many long-standing, obstinate strictures; and their removal by perforation or division is rendered indispensable. The practice requires the most careful attention and anatomical knowledge; and no one but a professional man would attempt its employment. No. 11 sketch exhibits a curved instrument, with the pointed lancet projecting as when applied. No. 12 exhibits ditto, but with a differently formed instrument, consisting of two portions separated, so as to allow a director, in the form of a thin silver wire with a silver knob, to pass for the purpose of exploring the passage which the instrument is to follow and enlarge. It is indispensable in strictures seated upon the soft and deep parts, lest a false passage should be made. No. 13 represents a straight instrument; No. 14 ditto, but with the lancet in reserve—the last a perforator. The reader has now been made acquainted with the various resources the surgeon has at his command. A few words on their employment will complete the necessary amount of information to render the one as wise as the other. By way of recapitulation, the treatment of stricture is by _dilatation_, _cauterization_, and _division_. They are to be estimated in the order of their arrangement. By dilatation is meant the enlarging of the urethral passage through the frequent introduction of bougies of graduated sizes. It is an operation unattended with any considerable pain; its novelty sometimes renders a patient a little nervous, but a complaint is rarely made after a second or third introduction. Indeed, it is oftentimes courted more frequently than is desirable. The application also of caustic, or even the perforator, produces scarcely the least inconvenience. Hemorrhage, of most things to be dreaded, is less frequent, with cauterizing and cutting instruments (in skilful hands), than the incautious employment of blunt-pointed bougies.