Many of us who practice intubation in the treatment cf laryngeal diphtheria occasionally meet with a case that causes us much care and annoyance, by reason of the duration of the symptoms of stenosis. Since the advent of the diphtheria antitoxin our methods of treating intubation have changed. Where, before the use of this remedy, we permitted the tube to remain in the larynx at least a week before we thought of disturbing or removing it, we have found that, in the majority of cases, the tube can be removed, or removes itself by expectoration, before the peroid of five days, or 120 hours. If we are called early enough, that is, before intubation becomes a necessity, our cases—in the majority of instances—recover promptly on the third day, and at the most the symptom of stenosis disappears before the fifth day.
Still, we meet cases that are not