Though for centuries venesection was considered one of the most valuable methods to be employed in the cure of disease, it has now fallen entirely out of use.
The present generation of physicians, indeed, has seen so little of the practice of blood letting as a therapeutic agent that it is hard for them to realize how universally it was used even as late as the middle of the last century.
At the time the writer commenced the study of medicine (about fifty years ago) the favorite text-book used by medical students was Watson's "Practice of Medicine." It was indeed a charming book, and one that for beauty of style and literary diction could not be surpassed. It was, however, in some respects a most discouraging book. Watson would give the most vivid pictures of the symptoms and progress of diseases and yet when it came to their treatment all