It has often happened, even in the best hands, that the patient has been severely burned, when the ordinary clamp and cautery method has been employed in the operation for piles, causing the surgeon no end of annoyance. To avoid this, I have devised a little instrument that eliminates such accidents; this instrument is small, inexpensive, portable, easily sterilized and does away with the expensive pile clamp and protecting gauze pad. It is an oval-shaped, nickel-plated brass plate, 2½ by 2 inches, with the edges turned up, except at the lower portion, which has a narrow slit for the purpose of slipping it behind the forceps that grasps the pile mass. In using it the rectum is thoroughly dilated with a rectal speculum, the protruding pile mass grasped by an artery forceps and an ordinary hysterectomy forceps (Ferguson flat-tipped forceps is admirably adapted) is made to grasp around the base