_Treatment._—Some eighty years ago Baron Boyer, speaking of the disease now under consideration, said that it had been advised to expose and divide the contracted tendon, and even to excise a portion, afterwards keeping the hand extended upon a splint; but, he remarks, “Le succès d’une telle opération est trop incertain; elle n’a probablement jamais été pratiquée et un chirurgeon prudent devra toujours s’en abstenir.” It was he who expressed the congratulatory belief that surgery had already in his day reached its final limits, and all that had then not been accomplished could scarcely be regarded as attainable. For many years after his time it cannot be said that the treatment made any real progress. It is true that Sir Astley Cooper advised subcutaneous section of the contracted bands, but the suggestion was not carried into practice till much later, when Dupuytren, having decided that the tendons were not affected, did what Boyer considered unpermissible, cut the contracted cords and superjacent integument, and straightened the hand upon a splint. The results appeared to fully justify the remarks of his predecessor, for under this treatment the gaping wound suppurated; and if the patient recovered without loss of the hand the process of cicatrisation at length restored the deformity in a more hopeless and distressing form than before. A few years afterwards Goyrand recommended an improved method: that of exposing the tense bridle of morbid tissue by a longitudinal incision, dividing it, and then reuniting the edges of the cutaneous wound; and this plan was adopted with various modifications by other surgeons. The absence of antiseptic precautions, however, exposed the wound to all the dangers of infection, and as the treatment mostly failed to secure the advantage hoped for it fell into disrepute, and patients were usually dissuaded by their friends, and even by their medical attendants, from submitting to any operative measures. It is to Jules Guérin that we are indebted for the first demonstration of the value of the subcutaneous method proposed by Sir Astley Cooper, and the practice was carried out in this country by Messrs. Tamplin and Lonsdale, and perfected by Mr. William Adams. For a time the subcutaneous operation held its ground without a rival, but the introduction of the antiseptic principle in surgery rendered it possible to reconsider the discredited open method, and the plan was revived with various modifications by Kocher, Busch, Hardie, and others, with encouraging though variable results. The therapeutical measures now eligible may be briefly enumerated: