188, | 164 
ISSUES. 
ese are peas, waxed-sponge, or wax-taper, 
introduced into an incision made into the teguments 
in the neck, spine, arms, legs, thighs, side and other 
parts of the body, by the irritation of which suppu- 
ration is produced and continued as long as the ex- 
traneous substance used, is kept there ; or they may 
be made by applying a small round blister the size 
of atwenty-five cent piece, or a dollar, and when the 
cuticle is removed, applying lunar or what is bet- 
ter common caustic. until a slough is produced, and 
the denuded surface kept running by an irri- 
tating ointment. The firstare common, the lat- 
ter caustic issues. Thus established the sup- 
puration becomes a drain which may be continued — 
for any length of time, by daily removing, in 
the common issue the inserted irritant, wash- 
ing the wound with soap and water and rein- 
serting the pea, &c.; and, in the caustic issue, 
by similar ablution and varying the nature of the 
irritating dressing. These remedies are of ancient 
date. ‘The caustic issues were much used by the 
Greek and Roman practitioners, and their writers 
have commended them in gout, sciatica, chronic 
diseases of the pulmonary organs, the liver, spleen, 
epilepsy. They have, at this day, lost none of 
their ancient repute, but Stand prominently, among 
the usefal remedies and palliatives, of the same 
affections for which they were esteemed of old, and 
