20. Abscessus lumborum. See Psoas, seu Lum-borum Abscessus.

21. Abscessus manuum. Abscesses on the Hands. For the most part they are strumous; when not, the common methods suffice for their removal.

22. Abscessus prope maxillas. Abscesses about the Jaws. Besides the common causes, a carious tooth, the tooth-ache, an injury done to the socket of the jaw in extracting a tooth, etc. may produce an abscess in these parts. Abscesses under the chin are frequently found in children, but they easily give way to the common methods. The conglobate glands under the jaws are very subject to suppuration, and are often mistaken for strumous swellings, but they differ greatly from them. The strumous kind are contained in a cyst, which requires to be destroyed by escharotics after the matter is discharged; but these are managed and cured with ease by the ordinary methods of digestion.

23. Abscessus mediastini. An abscess of the Mediastinum. In such situations there is but little to be done for the relief of the patient: however, it is observed by several practitioners, that in the venereal disease this disorder is peculiar and frequent. The use of the trepan has been recommended to give an opening to the matter, through an aperture in the sternum. The attempt would, however, be rash and injudicious. The presence of matter, in the mediastinum, is always uncertain, and its situation more so. The admission of air also into this cavity must be highly dangerous: yet it has been attempted with apparent success by Mr. Blair (London Medical Review, vol. iv). A paper on this case occurs in the xvth volume of the same work. The cavity of the chest has certainly been opened with advantage to discharge water, pus, and wind. See Kirkland's Med. Surgery, ii. 183.

24. Abscessus mesenterii. An abscess of the Mesentery. Suppurations in this part are not suspected, because neither heat nor pain is to be perceived in it; but these symptoms, though common, yet are not essential to inflammation and suppuration, as they depend on the sensibility of the parts. It may be ob-served, that pus is no where more readily formed than in parts where the texture is loose; and abscesses in the mesentery are far from being rare, and are generally to be discovered by a continual hectic fever, an oppressive uneasiness in the belly, a discharge of asanious matter by stool, and sometimes pain and heat in the intestines. The sanious matter is also not unfrequently absorbed by the lacteals, mixed with the blood, and conveyed to the glands of the trachea, the kidneys, etc.

Hence large imposthumes of the mesentery are often accompanied with discharges of purulent urine, or a spitting of purulent matter, though at the same time no injury hath happened either to the lungs or to the kidneys. If the abscess is seated in a place less fit for the excretion of its contents, very troublesome pains, resembling a colic, are produced: if the matter is discharged into a cavity of the belly, it soon produces a gangrene. Horstius, Bartholine, and Tulpius, give-instances of the pus being emptied into the cavity of the intestines, and discharged by stool; but, notwithstanding all these circumstances, for the most part the diagnostics are very obscure; nay, these abscesses have been unsuspected, and dissection after death hath alone discovered them. If these tumours are suspected, they must be distinguished both from an inflammation and a scirrhus. In general, the prognostic is doubtful; for if the abscess breaks, and discharges a putrid matter into the belly, sudden death follows: if after the rupture the ulcer is not speedily cured, it induces a gangrene, a dropsy, or a consumption. If this complaint is manifest, and the tumour can be perceived, emollients may be applied externally, and internally maybe administered aperient and gentle purgative medicines, and remedies used in obstructions of the liver and spleen, etc. These suppurations are generally in the glands of the mesentery, and are then symptoms of scrofula. These glands are often found after death in a scirrhous state, and thus are frequently the companions of a cancer here, or in some other glandular part. Riverius speaks largely and well on this subject. See his Prax. Med. lib. xiii.

25. Abscessus narium. An abscess in the .Nostril. Ozaena. This, from the pain it occasions, is exceedingly troublesome. If in the inflammatory state it can be removed by bleeding, purging, blistering the back, etc. much trouble to the patient will be saved; if, in spite of all, suppuration advances, emollient injections may be thrown up the affected nostril, and a warm cataplasm laid upon the nose. Wiseman observes, that the matter, when digested, is very tough. See Bell's Surgery, iv. 76. Pearson's Principles of Surgery, i. 255. White's Surgery, 265.

26. Abscessus ny mphae. An abscess in the .Nym-fiha. See Alae.

Abscessus oculi. An abscess in the Eye. From the small-pox most frequently, though from other causes this accident sometimes happens. When the seat is in the transparent part of the cornea, it is discovered by the peculiar whiteness of its appearance. When it is in the opaque part of the cornea, the eye is swelled, but more particularly so where the abscess is seated. If its seat is deeper, the first evidence of its existence is generally the extravasation of its contents in the aqueous humour. Those on the transparent cornea are generally cured by cautiously opening them with the point of a lancet, carefully avoiding the pellicles of this coat which lay beneath. In the other two kinds there is great danger of losing the sight, for they discharge themselves into the anterior chamber of the eye; though sometimes a cure is effected without any remaining inconvenience. When the matter of these diffuses itself so as to spread over all the pupil of the eye, then is formed the hypopyon; if only a part of the pupil is covered, the matter forming itself into a speck like those at the bottom of our nails, is called an onyx. 1 Heister, in his Surgery, gives a different account of the hypopyon and the onyx. In the cure of the chemosis, first use remedies to resolve the inflammation; if these fail, proceed as follows. While the contents of the abscess are not yet dispersed, but extend into the hole of the pupil, place the patient fronting a good light, with bis head laid on the back of an easy chair, then make an incision into the transparent part of the cornea, under the hole of the pupil, taking care that the point of the lancet does not touch the iris, which lies behind the pus; make the aperture long enough to give a free vent, then gently inject a little warm water therein. Afterwards apply a compress, wetted in a collyrium of rose-water, well mixed with a little of the white of an egg: keep the compress constantly moist with this fluid by sprinkling it from time to lime, and drop some of it three or four times in the day in the orifice on the cornea. Some days after the first discharge, a fresh collection of pus sometimes presents itself, which is discharged by- introducing a fine stillet into the incision. See on these subjects Wallis's Nosologia Methodica Oculorum.