BOOK VII. 2. 4-6

which has this advantage, that a small wound continues open longer for the withdrawal of the pus, and the resulting scar is small. But if there are sinews near by, the cautery is unsuitable, lest spasm of the sinews ensues or paralysis of the limb; then the scalpel becomes necessary. But although abscesses elsewhere can be opened even whilst immature, where there are sinews, we must wait for them to be fully matured, since the skin then becomes thin, and the pus joins it, and so is nearer to get at. Most abscesses require a linear incision; but in that termed panus a spreading abscess, because it generally thins out the skin extremely, all the skin overlying the pus is to be cut away. But when the scalpel is used, care should always be taken that the incisions made are as few and as small as possible, but enough in number and extent to afford the necessary relief. For the larger cavities may at times have to be cut into rather widely even by two or three incisions, and cuts must be so made that the deepest part of the cavity gets a vent, lest any fluid should be left there to eat its way gradually into adjoining tissue, which was previously sound. Also it is natural that the skin should have to be cut away rather widely. For when the whole bodily habit has become vitiated in the course of a prolonged disease and the abscess cavity has extended widely and the skin over it has already become pallid, then we can recognize that the skin is already dead and of no further use; and therefore the excision of overlying skin is better, especially if the suppuration is round about the larger joints, and if the patient, confined to bed, has been exhausted by diarrhoea, and gained nothing from his food. But the skin should be so cut out as to