Pneumoperitoneum in the Study of Hepatic Abscess

popularize aspiration with air replacement as a method of treatment, it is felt that the medical profession has not taken to it with any great enthusiasm, there being certain objections to the procedure recommended by him :? (a) It is not outside the experience of most physicians in the tropics that emetine in combination with organic compounds of arsenic and of iodine would resolve a very large proportion of hepatic abscesses, and that aspiration has to be resorted to only in exceptional cases in whom the abscess has reached a size when spontaneous absorption, after destruction of the amoebae and the secondary organisms, is not physically possible, or when an abscess originally amoebic lias been converted into a pyogenic one by the secondary invader taking on a more prominent role. (b) It has been demonstrated by McCallum that amoeba) are found only in the margins of the living and not in the necrotic tissues of the abscess, unless the abscess has been opened to the_ air. lie points out that this is because of their need for oxygen. An amoebic abscess presents very few amoeba) even in the walls in