THE HISTORY Of the t reatment of hemorrhoids over the centuries has been written many times and I would hesitate to suggest that I could add anything to your knowledge of this subject. Yet I think it is perhaps salutary to pause from time to time and look back over what our predecessors did and compare this with what we do today with all our infinitely better conditions. I t is interesting that Hippocrates, about 400 B.C., wrote much on the subject of hemorrhoids and recommended use of the cautery with a hot iron, a method of treatment which was still being advocated by Langenbeck in Germany as late as 1870. Hippocrates was not, of course, the first one to describe hemorrhoids; reference to them is made in the Papyrus of Eber about 1500 B.C. a n d ' m a n y references are also to be found in the Old Testament . 3 Here the condition is referred to as "ffmerods" and it is implied that this is a particularly unpleasant condition with which to be afflicted. Thus, f rom Samuel 1, Chapter 5, we read that " . . . the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts." And again, " . . . And they that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven." There is no great wonder that this condition should have received early attention, for it was an obvious affliction, easily ac-