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"If, sir," said the surgeon dryly, "the degrees of Edinburgh walking your London hospitals amputating some hundreds of limbs operating on the human frame in every shape that is warranted by the lights of science, a clear conscience, and the commission of the Continental Congress, can make a surgeon, I am one." "Your pardon, sir," repeated the colonel stiffly.
The regiments which had not been engaged were at work bringing in the wounded, and Doctor Alexander and his assistants were busy at the ghastly task of amputating limbs and extracting balls. The next day a few officers from the fleet came up; among these was Hawtry, who was charged with a special mission from Jack, who could not again ask for leave, to inquire after his brother.
Similar practices rendered it necessary for the United States Government to stop some of the ceremonial dances of the Indians under their surveillance. A peculiar custom among savages is the amputation of a finger as a sacrifice to a deity. In the tribe of the Dakotas the relatives of a dead chief pacified his spirit by amputating a finger.
When the surgeons were debating the propriety of amputating it in his hearing, he begged them to spare the leg, as it was very valuable, being an "imported leg." He was of Irish birth, and this well-timed piece of wit saved his leg, for the surgeons thought, if he could perpetrate a joke at such a time, they would trust to his vitality to save his limb.
He was also partial to pigtails, though his earliest was shorn from his head by a dangerous rival, who cut him out of the good graces of Miss Polly Martine, a powdered beauty of the past century, by amputating his cue; while his latest one was sacrificed on the altar of humanity but thereby hangs a tale. If Mr. Potts was behind his age in dress, he was in advance of it in sentiment.
This, I may add, is the general rule in the prison library, every book being thus mutilated. It is a silly precaution, for if a prisoner can succeed in carrying on a correspondence with his friends outside, he is obviously not dependent on the library for materials, and he would be the veriest fool to excite suspicion by amputating the leaves of a book.
All around, on mattresses and heaps of straw, numbers of wounded lay ranged; and in the middle, on a large kitchen-table, a surgeon-major and his two aids, their shirt-sleeves rolled up, were amputating the leg of a soldier, who was shrieking in agony. Behind them was a mass of legs and arms. I turned away sick and trembling.
When the surgeons were debating the propriety of amputating it in his hearing, he begged them to spare the leg, as it was very valuable, being an "imported leg." He was of Irish birth, and this well-timed piece of wit saved his leg, for the surgeons thought, if he could perpetrate a joke at such a time, they would trust to his vitality to save his limb.
Yet I may remind you that you have been kindly dealt with; for if the blow which has done you this injury had lighted on your neck, as it was aimed, it would have swept your head from your shoulders, instead of amputating a less considerable member." "I wish it had, Dwining I wish it had lighted as it was addressed.
If there's anything hideous it's your acts, sir; having those thundering guns fired, to send huge shells shivering and shattering human beings to pieces for the doctor to try and mend; your horrible chops given with cutlasses and the gilt-handled swords you are all so proud of wearing insolent, bragging, showy tools that are not to be compared with my neat set of amputating knives in their mahogany case.
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