FLORENCE.—The glands under your arm have inflamed and broken down, and you ask us to tell you what has caused this. There are many possible causes, but we will confine our remarks to the commonest, and therefore most likely causes. The use of these glands is to filter off from the lymph any impurities it may contain. Let us briefly glance at physiological considerations to enable us to understand why these glands are so extremely commonly inflamed. Your right arm is affected. Very well. The blood reaches your right arm and hand by the arteries. Part of the blood returns to the heart by the veins, part of it exudes through the walls of the smallest arteries. This part is not red but colourless, and is called lymph. This lymph bathes and nourishes the tissues, giving them food, and taking away with it their impurities. This lymph flows back through colourless vessels called lymph-channels, which end in the veins of the neck; but we said that the lymph takes up impurities in its passage. These impurities are partly physiological and partly unhealthy; the latter consist of germs. If these germs were sent into the blood-stream there would be disastrous consequences, and to prevent this the lymph-glands are placed in the course of the lymph-channels just before these enter the blood-stream. All the lymph is forced through these glands as through a filter, and any germs it may contain remain in the glands, and are quickly destroyed by the elements of the glands, which are there for this purpose. But suppose you have an abscess on your hand; that abscess is swarming with germs, and the lymph in its passage will carry away a vast number of these injurious microbes, and will take them to the glands of the armpit. The germs remain in the glands and give the glands extra work to do. The glands will enlarge and become inflamed. If the infection of the glands is very virulent, the glands may, as it were, die at their post and become abscesses. Now we can proceed. The commonest cause of inflamed glands in the axilla is inflammation and suppuration about the hand or arm. An abscess, a small dirty wound, or anything of a septic character on the arm or hand will produce inflammation of the glands under the arm. In these cases, as soon as the primary condition is remedied the glands regain their normal condition. But suppose that the primary wound was a stab in the hand from a hat-pin, which in some way had become infected with the germs of tubercle; then the glands will also become infected with tubercle, and this brings us to the second commonest form of inflammation of lymphatic glands, the so-called strumous or scrofulous glands. This is an exceedingly common affection, especially in children. Good diet and cod-liver oil will help to enable the body to withstand this disease. Sea air, and especially the air of Margate, Folkestone, or Cromer will do more than anything else to cure this affection in its early stages. Sometimes, in the later stages, or