nce
is hard, like gristle, and their surface uneven and corrugated, they
have undergone such changes that absorption is impossible, and their
removal absolutely necessary.

I dwell thus particularly on the question of removal of the tonsils,
because there is among many persons an unreasoning dread of the
operation, which is entirely devoid of danger, requiring only a few
seconds for its performance, and which may even be done under
chloroform. The painting tincture of iodine behind the angle of the jaw,
or the touching the tonsils with caustic, iodine, alum, tannin, or sweet
spirits of nitre are utterly futile proceedings. They diminish the
unhealthy and often offensive secretion from the glands which beset the
tonsils, and restore the surface to a more healthy condition, but they
are absolutely without influence in lessening their size.

Now and then all the symptoms of enlarged tonsils are present, but yet
most careful examination fails to discover any increase of their size.
When this is the case the symptoms are due to a thickening of the
membrane at the back part of the nostrils, often attended with spongy
outgrowths from their surface, which obstruct just as completely as
enlarged tonsils would do the free entrance of air. It will, in any case
where this condition is suspected, be absolutely necessary to seek the
advice of some of those gentlemen who make a specialty of diseases of
the throat, and who will have the necessary technical dexterity to
discover the condition, and to treat it skilfully.

=Abscess at back of the Throat.=--I should pass unnoticed, on account of
its rarity, the occasional formation of an abscess at the back of the
throat, behind the gullet, interfering both with breathing and with
swallowing, but that the description of it in my Lectures once enabled a
lady in the wilds of Russia to detect it, to point out the nature of the
case to her puzzled doctor, to urge him to open the abscess, and thus to
save her child's life.

This abscess may form at any age, sometimes after fever, sometimes
without any obvious cause. It shows itself by difficulty in swallowing
and breathing, unattended by cough, but accompanied by a sound similar
to that of croup, but not so harsh or ringing. The neck is stiff, the
head thrown back, and often there is a distinct swelling on one or other
side of the neck. The finger introduced into the mouth, and carried over
the tongue to the back of the throat, feels there