Surgical operations which excise diseased tonsils completely are gradually replacing the hasty and uncertain manipulations with the tonsillotome and other implements which are apt to leave the base of the tonsil in the throat, experience having shown that such tonsillar remnants may contain tubercle bacilli, are prone to inflame, to hypertrophy, and to be the source of repeated peritonsillar abscesses.
Dr. Charles M. Robertson was one of the first to advocate a complete excision of the tonsil, and his demonstration of his scissors operation in the American Medical Association in 1903 has done much to make tonsil surgery more radical.
In this paper I explain a knife-dissection technic for the complete removal of the tonsils adopted as my uniform operation after a trial of many methods. Its description is preceded by an outline of the anatomy of the tonsillar region, a brief recital of the indications for extirpation of the