ld be incised and cauterized.
Soft polyps should be drawn out with a toothed tenaculum as far as can
be without risk of breaking them off. The incision should be made at the
root so that nothing or just as little as possible of the pathological
structure be allowed to remain. It should be cut off with a fine
scissors, or with a narrow file just small enough to permit its ingress
into the nostrils, or with a scalpel without cutting edges on the sides,
but only at its extremity, and this cutting edge should be broad and
well sharpened. If there is danger of hemorrhage, or if there is fear of
it, the instruments with which dissection is made should be fired
(_igniantur_), that is, heated at least to a dull redness. Afterwards
the stump, if any remains, should be touched with a hot iron or else
with cauterizing agents so that as far as possible it should be
obliterated.

After the operation a pledget of cotton dipped in the green ointment
described by Rhazes should be placed in the nose. This pledget should
have a string fastened to it, hanging from the nose in order that it may
be easily removed. At times it may be necessary to touch the root of the
polyp with a stylet on which cotton has been placed that has been dipped
in _aqua fortis_ (nitric acid). It is important that this cauterizing
fluid should be rather strong so that after a certain number of touches
a rather firm eschar is produced. In all these manipulations in the nose
Arculanus recommends that the nose should be held well open by means of
a nasal speculum. Pictures of all these instruments occur in his extant
works, and indeed this constitutes one of their most interesting and
valuable features. They are to be seen in Gurlt's "History of Surgery."

In some cases he had seen the polyp was so difficult to get at or was
situated so far back in the nose that it could not be reached by means
of a tenaculum or scissors, or even the special knife devised for that
purpose. For these patients Arculanus describes an operation that is to
be found in the older writers on surgery, Paul of AEgina (AEginetus),
Avicenna, and some of the other Arabian surgeons. For this three
horse-tail hairs are twisted together and knotted in three or four
places, and one end is passed through the nostrils and out through the
mouth. The ends of this are then pulled on backward and forward after
the fashion of a saw. Arculanus remarks evidently with the air of a man
who has tried it and not