At about 11 P. M., Nov. 25, 1898, I was called to St. Joseph's Hospital to see a case of appendicitis. The physician in attendance said that the patient had been delirious most of the day, was vomiting continuously, and the bowels had been constipated during his present illness of five days duration. There was marked pain and tenderness over the right lower quadrant of the abdomen, his temperature being 101.5 and his pulse from 130 to 140. He had had a previous attack last June. The man was now becoming progressively weaker, and the doctor thought he should be operated on that night, if at all.
Both the patient and myself arrived at the hospital about midnight, and I found him to be a man 28 years of age, quite a corpulent subject, with a very prominent fat abdomen, he being a bartender by occupation. The man was very