There, lie still; you must not exert yourself. Do not try to draw your thigh up; we will take care of that.' Let it go as if you had nothing to do with it. Mr. R —, lift up a little more, as you

are a true surgeon.'

'Oh, I shall die!' gasped the cruciated wretch.

My good friend, you came here to have your thigh put back in its place, and you must be patient. You cannot expect it to be returned

without pain.'

'I know; but wait till to-morrow; or let me rest myself for an hour or two, and then I shall feel refreshed, and be better able to bear it.'

'You may go to sleep, if you wish, my good fellow. I should be glad to have you.'

'But he could not well go in stays,' observed one of the walkers, in a low tone, to his neighbor.

'The cord-drawer there should unlace,' replied the other.

But

he resembles an ox triced up to be shod, more than a lady in corsets.'

That saying is rather too ox-umorious for the occasion,' returned the éléve.

'Do you chew tobacco, my friend?' said the chief operator to the almost exhausted patient.

I have n't chewed any lately,' he groaned. 'So much the better then.

your box. There — ah !'

Mr. Aster, let me have a little out of

'Here, my good man, take that,' he continued, presenting the grateful boon to the patient. Eat it if you have not been accustomed to chewing, I am in hopes it will make you sick.'

This weed, it is known, produces the most deadly nausea and exhaustion in those not addicted to its use. It is customary to employ it in cases of this nature, where habit does not intervene, to incapacitate the patient for making any voluntary exertion in opposition to the extension, which purpose it answers even better than bleeding.

The occupation temporarily relieved him by changing the current of his thoughts, and he reclined in a state of utter listlessness and évanouissement, only interrupted by occasional retchings. The surgeons perceived the favorable opportunity; but the moment a movement was made to seize it, his muscles were on the alert, and it became a struggle between the unaided energies of a desperate man, and the mechanically-exerted force of an equally hardy but less excited opponent.

'Come, be calm, and do not strain so.'

'I can't help it!' The surgeons knew it.

Whisper to him, Parcels,' said Aster, one of the junior assistants, who made his brightness particularly apparent in perpetrating puns upon the Roman vernacular, whisper him, by way of consoÎation and encouragement,

'Non, si male nunc, et olim
Sic erit.'

'That is, I suppose, If you are ill now, it is no sign you will be sick by-and-by.''

'Yes; and nothing could be more inspiring.'

'Poor dog, it is true he is likely to be as much benefitted by that as any thing else; but I will not trifle with his sufferings, even in seeming."

'Cur nodus - why not? What will you do?'

'I will help, and then

'Soothe him by mild language. No, let Nature speak out her agony in his cries, and let the surgeon utter his sympathy as best becomes him, and as the welfare of his patient demands.'

'In jests?'

In imperturbable coolness and decision: or, as you say, in jests; for what is comfort, under these circumstances, but a jest?'

'I think his system will not endure much more,' said Parcels. 'It is possible,' replied the walker.

He was a brave man, and even in this painful situation, he took what was offered him to increase his prostration; he chewed up a cigar, and gulped it down; he drank swallow after swallow of tartaremetic solution, a most nauseating and relaxing preparation. But still, though deadly sick, the sweat pouring out of his forehead in clear drops, and though seemingly stretched, on this Procrustean bed, at least three inches beyond his natural stature, his muscles showed no disposition to relinquish their grasp upon the bone. The surgeons again and again exerted all their strength upon the passive and sus pended limb, but it was without effect. They spoke a few words to each other, and at length concluded to remit the extension for a few minutes, in order to rest themselves.

It was, indeed, not only necessary for them, but for the man also, whose frame, it was justly feared, would not bear such unremitted torture. He seemed reprieved, in truth, by even the trifling respite that they granted him, and looked at the Herculean tar, (that was, before he became a nurse, thinking that his tender forces might be better exerted in the sick-room than on board a ship,) as, in obedience to orders, he walked up toward the slender and elegantlywrought brass block, with steps that might have been impressed by an infant, which yielded only inch by inch the play that he had been so long and diligently accumulating upon the rope; he regarded him, I say, with a grim satisfaction, not unmixed with a tiger-like expression about the eyes and corners of the mouth, which bespoke any thing but pure and cordial affection.

But far from gaining the so much-coveted disenthralment, to the full of his desires, the cords were only partially slackened, and he was barely allowed to catch a glimpse of that freedom which would

have been to him

Welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land.'

He might have lain about as much at his ease as Satan on the fiery plains of, when bethinking him of his late discomfiture, and planning new schemes of vengeance.

I had seen many operations and exhibitions; but in none that I assisted at, was I ever so struck with the utter inefficiency of the measures resorted to, which yet seemed all of the most appropriate

1837.]

Discussion of the Learned Doctors.'

113

and potential kind. I knew that there was no fault in the operation, and that every expedient was strictly in accordance with the rules. 'He bears that stretching well,' said Parcels, one of the young éléves. 'The dislocation must be into the ischiatic notch.'

6

'It is,' replied Berry. The thigh should be pulled up more. Rhodes, instead of sending you up there again, to straddle over this poor fellow, we'd better put you at the halyards, and let Featherbody mount the rostrum.'

'It will take nothing less than the devil or a handspike to lift it out. My handkerchief around the upper end of the thigh was a point d'appui to the bodies of four mortal surgeons, and served as a pivot to balance two of them on his extremities, and two at his head.'

Faith, you did resemble Jupiter, weighing the ponderous merits of the adverse parties; and long time in even scale the doctors hung ;' but - seemed inclined to kick the beam.'

'Do you observe,' said Berry, 'the doctor himself looks a little puzzled? J— and Dare no better off. I thought would break the femur more than once.'

That bone is just at this time encased in an impenetrable mail of rigid muscles. If you broke that, you would break an iron bar of equal size,' replied Parcels.

In truth,' said Berry, 'the relaxing medicines and bleeding seem to have had little effect in weakening them. How much blood did you take, Parcels, before he was brought in?'

'Two pounds.'

'He has lost two here, and I should think he might spare a couple

more.'

'Yes, and two more added to them, before the bone would be in its place,' remarked Parcels.

You have no faith in nauseating mixtures, and debilitating remedies?'

'No. While they apparently reduce the strength, they seem not to take a whit from the power of the muscles to resist extension.' 'You will certainly be expelled the church.'

'There is,' continued Parcels, ' a kind of galvanism residing in the muscles, which emanates from the brain; and all bodily remedies, while they leave this organ in a state of intense action and excitement, can have no beneficial effect in subduing them.'

Ego cycnus!' said Aster, in a kind of Latin, which must be taken literally to be understood, 'I swan! this is the most untractable member that ever came under my notice. We shall have to subscribe for a high-heeled boot for the other leg, if we carry this out much farther.'

Another trial of doctoring, I think, will shortly break off the matter in debate,' observed Berry.

They now for a second time drew him into mid-air. The nurse, who had stood looking on with his hawk's eye, and wiping the sweat from his brow with one hand, while with the other he grappled the end of the pulley-rope, again applied his strength; the blocks drew nearer together; the surgeon, using the disjointed member for a lever, and his knee as a rest, exerted his whole force upon the limb,

in one strong effort to pry it out; but it gave not, although it was anticipated that the bone might snap. The assistant upon the table, drawing upward with all his might, endeavored to entice (somewhat as the Irishman remonstrated) the upper end from its hiding-place. But it would have been easier, to all appearance, to have raised the world without Archimedes' fulcrum, than to have displaced this little globe from its new socket.

The surgeons regarded each other with evident indecision and inquietude, and began to remit or grow more abrupt in their exertions. The students looked incredulous, and exhibited a disposition to depart. But, resolved not to incur the mortification or disgrace of a failure, if it could be averted by any human means, the operators determined to carry their exertions, in a final attempt, as far as was consistent with the patient's safety. They loosed the bandages from the arms, and gave him an additional dose of the nauseating so

lution.

In this state of things, a young man leaped cautiously over the partition into the arena, stole his way unnoticed among the surgeons, and approaching the table stealthily, took from it a scalpel, or operating-knife, of large size. With this, passing in front of the man, he suddenly started up with it before his eyes, and seemed ready to plunge it into his body. As he made this gesture, the man roused up, in horror. Although pale from the loss of blood, he blanched still whiter, at this palpable demonstration of a design to slay him. 'It is necessary, my friend,' said the young man, steadily and clearly, to cut down to your back-bone, in order to get out the head of the thigh-bone, which is lodged there!'

Who can tell the terror that filled the sufferer's excited imagination, during the utterance of this awful ultimatum ! 'The sense of death is most in apprehension;' and in the horror of that moment, he felt with King John:

The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd,
And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered,
And then all this thou see'st is but a clod!'

The ready éléve now made as if he was about to lay open the bowels of the patient, at a single rash stroke, from the stomach to the hip. Every arm was raised to arrest him; but taken as they were by surprise, he had ample time to execute his purpose. Leaning over and pressing his hand upon the side of the abdomen, he drew the knife rapidly and violently along its naked surface, from one extremity to the other. Then hastily rising, and throwing the knife on the bloody floor, he darted from the midst of the attendants; contriving, in the course of the action, to cover up with a corner of the blanket the work he had committed.

The patient, who had at first struggled, sank back; the spectators ran to his side; the students started from their seats; and the bone slipped into its place, with an audible click!' They hurriedly drew off the blanket from the patient's body, when lo! there was no

wound! They went up to his side, and endeavored to arouse him from his stupor, and make him sensible that he was not hurt. In this they soon succeeded. The straps, pullies, and bandages were undone, and he was laid at length upon the table.

The young operator had well observed the powerfully depressing effect of fear on the human system, and had been incited to the ingenious expedient just described, by witnessing the obstinacy with which the bone had resisted all the measures for its reduction. In a few days the patient recovered entirely from his fright, and was seen walking about the halls of the hospital.