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into and imbedded in the living body, seldom or never produced any 
inflammatory action, or none at least beyond the stage of adhesive 
inflammation, even when lodged for years. Some time ago, when 
the subject of acupuncture specially attracted the attention of medical 
men, Cloquet, Pelletan, Pouillet, and others, showed that the passage 
and retention of long acupuncture needles was attended with little or 
no irritation in the implicated living tissues. The reviewer of their 
works and experiments in the Edinburgh Medical Journal for 1827 
observes, — “ It is a remarkable circumstance that the acupuncture 
needles never cause inflammation in their neighbourhood. If they 
are rudely handled or ruffled by the clothes of the patient, they may 
produce a little irritation ; but if they are properly secured and pro- 
tected, they may be left in the body for an indefinite length of time 
without causing any of the effects which usually arise on account of 
the presence of foreign bodies. In one of M. Cloquet’s patients, they 
were left in the temples for eighteen days ; and in cases in which 
needles have been swallowed, they have remained without causing 
inflammation for a much longer period. It appears probable, 
from the facts collected on the subject, that metallic bodies of every 
kind may remain imbedded in the animal tissues without being pro- 
ductive of injury.” (Page 197.) All the late observations and 
experiments upon metallic sutures are confirmatory of the same great 
pathological law, of the tolerance of living tissues for the contact of 
metallic bodies imbedded within their substance. In the operation 
for hare-lip, where the whole success or failure of the operation de- 
pends on the establishment or not of union by the first intention, 
surgeons use needles to keep the lips of the wound approximated, 
often compressing these needles strongly with their figure-of-eight 
ligatures, and find this measure the most successful means which 
they can adopt for accomplishing primary adhesion. 
The acupressure of arteries, when compared with the ligature of 
them, appears, as a means of arresting haemorrhage, to present va- 
rious important advantages : — 
1st, Acupressure will be found more easy, simple, and expeditious 
in its application than the ligature. 
2d, The needles in acupressure can scarcely be considered as 
foreign irritating bodies in the wound, and may always be entirely 
removed in two or three days, or as soon as the artery is con- 
sidered closed ; whilst the ligatures are truly foreign irritating 
