EMPYEMA, a medical term signifying a diseased condition of the chest, in which pus accumulates in the pleura, cures of which are sometimes effected by drawing off the pus by means of tubes.

The interest which Des Esseintes felt for the Latin language did not pause at this period which found it drooping, thoroughly putrid, losing its members and dropping its pus, and barely preserving through all the corruption of its body, those still firm elements which the Christians detached to marinate in the brine of their new language.

Issuing from the opening is seen occasionally a little inspissated pus; more often, however, the dry, mealy-looking detritus to which we have before referred.