source of all kinds of
mischief, and at the same time so completely curable, and whose cure
will be attended by such gratifying improvement on the part of the
little sufferer. In the first place, as has been said, their formation
may usually be prevented altogether by intelligent and up-to-date
hygienic care of the nose and the throat. In the second place, even
after they have occurred and developed to a considerable degree, they
can be removed by a trifling and almost painless operation, and, if
taken early enough, all their injurious effects overcome. If, however,
they have been neglected too long, so that the child has passed the
eighth or ninth year before any interference has been attempted, and
still more, of course, if it has passed the twelfth or thirteenth year,
then only a part of the disturbances that have been caused can be
remedied by their removal. So soft and pulpy are these growths, so
poorly supplied with blood-vessels or nerves, and so slightly connected
with the healthy tissues below them, that they may, in skilled hands, be
completely removed by simply scraping with a dull surgical spoon
(curette) or curved forceps, but never anything more knife-like than
this. In fact, in the first seven years of life, when their removal is
both easiest and will do most good, it is hardly proper to dignify the
procedure by the name of an operation. It is attended by about the same
degree of risk and of hemorrhage as the extraction of a tooth, and by
less than half the amount of pain.

But, trifling and free from danger as is the operation, there is nothing
in the entire realm of surgery which is followed by more brilliant and
gratifying results. It seems almost incredible until one has seen it in
half a dozen successive cases. Not merely doctors, but teachers and
nurses, develop a positive enthusiasm for it. This was the operation
that led to the comical, but pathetic, "Mothers' Riots" in the New York
schools. The word went forth, "The Krishts are cutting the throats of
your children"; and, with the shameful echoes of Kishineff ringing in
their ears, the Yiddish mothers swarmed forth to battle for the lives of
their offspring.

It is no uncommon thing to have a child of seven jump three to five
inches in height, six to twelve pounds in weight, and one to three
grades in his schooling, within the year following the operation. Ten
years more of intelligence and hygienic teaching should see this scourge
of childhood