Read before the Chicago Medical Society, Dec. 1, 1884.
An editorial bearing this title and appearing in the New York Medical Record, of Oct. 25, 1884, contains the following statement:
"There is no palliative measure for a ruptured extra-uterine cyst; there is no expectant treatment; and there is no other way known to medicine by which a woman in this condition can be reasonably expected to survive, save by the prompt use of the knife, and there is no reason for thinking that she would die if this be resorted to in time."
The object of this paper is to offer a protest against this ex cathedrâ mode of settling a question, in regard to which there is room for considerable latitude of opinion. Dogmatism, offensive and unphilosophical under all circumstances, attains its acme of arrogance when applied to rules of practice in medicine and surgery. Certainly, the use of