Abstraction of blood, usually of venous blood, known as venesection, was a practice frequently indulged in years ago. At one time in the history of medicine it seemed to be the measure regarded as a panacea for all ills. The reaction from the period of excessive bloodletting came during the previous century, and was so strong that the practice was for a generation or so almost abandoned. The eminent surgeon S. D. Gross wrote a paper entitled “Bleeding as a Lost Art.” Bloodletting is an expedient of great value in a somewhat restricted class of cases, but is capable of affording such relief in certain emergencies that practitioners should be ready to resort to it at any moment when it may be required. After removal of a certain amount of fluid blood pressure is naturally reduced and at the same time equalized, while when the right side of the heart is overburdened with its task it is thus made to beat more easily and regularly; thus indirectly there may be brought about a subsidence of violent heart effort, a reduction of the respiration rate, a lowering of temperature, and sometimes a diminution in the activity of morbid processes which may be beneficial, and even life-saving. Even after moderate bleeding, say a half-pint, the amount of urine is increased and the proportion of solids raised. More air is taken into the lungs, and oxygenation is thereby much improved. The indications for venesection are: Excessive vascular tension. Intensity of pathological tissue activity which is leading to serious disturbances. The removal of a certain proportion of toxic material from the blood. There may be added later the introduction of balanced physiological salt solution as recommended in the treatment of shock, and of some of the acute toxemias, _e. g._, delirium tremens. The effect on an embarrassed and overfilled right heart of the abstraction of blood is prompt. Nowhere is this more conspicuous than in the early stages of pneumonia, and in some cases of heart failure during administration of an anesthetic where a dilated heart seems to become so overfilled as to be unable to empty itself. In profound uremia, especially in puerperal eclampsia, the relief afforded by it is usually immediate and permanent. VENESECTION.