Le Clerc quotes Galen as authority for the statement that Asclepiades, who never hesitated for an instant to criticise the different therapeutic procedures of his predecessors, did not go so far as to condemn wholly the practice of bloodletting. Indeed, he was quite ready to employ it in the treatment of painful affections because, as he claimed, the pain was caused “by the retention of the larger particles or atoms in the pores or channels of the tissues, and hence--as these particles were composed of blood--bloodletting was the only remedy capable of setting them free.” Thus, he resorted to bleeding in pleurisy, because this affection is characterized by pain; but he abstained from employing the remedy in “peripneumonia” or “inflammation of the lung,” because in most cases it is not accompanied by pain; and he also did not approve of its employment in inflammation of the brain (_phrenitis_). On the other hand, he advocated bleeding in epilepsy and all forms of disease in which convulsions occurred, and he also advocated it in cases of hemorrhage of every description. Quinsy sore throat was another malady in which he drew blood freely from the veins of the arm, of the temple and even of the tongue; and in addition, when the disease was severe, he scarified the skin at suitable spots and applied cups to the part. In all these measures his purpose was “to open the pores”; and when this treatment failed he incised the tonsils or the uvula, and even, as a last resort, performed laryngotomy or tracheotomy. In cases of dropsy he employed _paracentesis abdominis_,--that is, he made a very small opening in the abdominal wall to serve as an outlet for the fluid contained in the peritoneal cavity. From these facts it is evident that Asclepiades did not always abide by his rule not to use any but very gentle remedies. Asclepiades showed, in his manner of treating still other pathological conditions, how different was his practice from that of his predecessors. In the first place, he was very partial, as has already been stated, to such extremely mild forms of physical exercise in the open air as one can obtain from driving or from being carried in a litter or a boat. He prescribed these measures, not merely for convalescents but also for those, for example, who were still in the midst of an active fever. His idea was, that by means of such very gentle forms of exercise the pores would become less clogged and would permit the juices of the body to flow more freely. In cases of dropsy, also, he was in the habit of employing friction for precisely the same purpose. He even used this remedy in cases of inflammation of the brain, in the expectation that he might thereby induce sleep for these patients. Indeed, this subject of frictions was one on which Asclepiades wrote at greater length than on any other remedial agent.