More than forty years ago Reulau inserted a catheter through a trocw iiito the thorax, arid applied negative pressure drainage. While the occa-5ioiial surgcoii has conic forward froin time t o time to advocate the closed niethod of treatnieiit in einpyenia, it h a not had very wide application. A c*onsiderable number of operators have tried i t in a few cases, only to abandon it whcn tcc.liniea1 diftieulties in its application were met with. One of the niain difliculties was leakage around the catheter, which occurred in a few days or t i t best a week. Trouble was also experienced on account of the opening in the catheter bec*oniing pluggcd with lumps of fibrin. The apparatus often leaked and otherwise went out of order. In a considerablc number of caasc5 rib rcseetion was pcrfornied a5 :t way out of the dificulty.
Tlic author has used the method of applying clo5ed drainage here dcscrihetl in se\ enty-five cwiseeutivc cases and has found the results obtained to be so 1iiuc.h better than those experieiiced with the open method t h a t the lattrr has been entirely abandoned. Nothing original is calaimed either for method or for apparatus. We have worked out a mode of application that