Aretæus directs us to open abscesses of the liver with red-hot irons. (Morb. Chron. i, 13.) Celsus mentions that some open abscesses of the liver with a scalpel, and some burn the vomica. (iv, 8.) Cælius Aurelianus, however, disapproves of this practice. (Pass. Tard. iii, 4.) Albucasis describes the operation like our author, and gives a drawing of a spear-shaped instrument for opening the vomica. (Chirurg. ii, 30.) Haly’s description is quite similar. (Pract. ix, 75.) SECT. XLVIII.—ON BURNING OVER THE SPLEEN. Having stretched the skin which lies over the spleen with hooks, we burn it through by one application of a long ignited cautery so as to form two eschars; and this we do three times so that there may be six eschars formed altogether. But Marcellus by using a trident or trident-shaped cautery formed six eschars at one application. * * * * * COMMENTARY. In cases of diseased spleen the Coan surgeons burned eschars on the side affected. (Hippocr. de Affect. intern. and de Affect. 5.) Aëtius directs us to burn the eschar either with the actual cautery or with caustics. (x, 12.) The ancients used an issue paste, very like the modern, prepared from potass. See above (s. 9.) Avicenna recommends the same practice as the Greeks (iii, 15, 1); and so in like manner Haly Abbas (Pract. ix, 76); Albucasis (Chirurg. i, 32); and Rhases (Contin. xx.) Guido de Cauliaco repeats Albucasis’s description of the process of burning the side in cases of scirrhous spleen. (ii, 2.) SECT. XLIX.—ON BURNING OVER THE STOMACH. In chronic defluxions of the stomach the moderns have recourse to burning,—some with knobbed cauteries, forming three eschars, one at the ensiform cartilage, and the other two below, so as to make a triangle, the depth of the burning being the thickness of the skin. Some form only one large eschar at the mouth of the stomach. But others do not burn with iron but with the substances called iscæ. The iscæ are spongy bodies forming on oaks and walnuts, being mostly in use with the barbarians. They allow the ulcers to remain for some time without cicatrizing, and rather stimulate them in order that by the great diaphoresis thereby occasioned, the mouth of the stomach may be freed from the defluxions. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus say nothing about burning over the stomach in affections of it. Aëtius’s account is similar to our author’s. He calls the iscæ the medullary part of the wood of walnuts. (vii, 91.) They are mentioned likewise by Haly Abbas, who says they are called _ducanum_ in the Persian language. (Pract. ix, 77.) Albucasis directs us to burn with iron. (Chirurg. i, 28.) SECT. L.—ON DROPSIES.