New York, May 22,1906.
To the Editor:
—In The Journal, May 19, 1906, Dr. J. E. Summers says, on page 1510: "I have done the McBurney incision in hundreds of patients, a few of these being pus cases, but it is a dangerous incision for this latter class, even in the hands of the most experienced." My own experience has been so directly at variance with this statement that it seems best to go on record in the matter. For some years I have employed the McBurney incision almost exclusively in all sorts of appendicitis work, pus cases, general septic peritonitis and all the complications that one commonly runs across. If one uses a short McBurney incision in his pus cases, working rapidly by touch instead of by sight, avoiding gauze packing and all drains except a small wick, avoiding counter-openings and other unnecessary procedure, "leaving his patient as nearly