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- Surgeon of the Fleet; that is, I mean, if you are fully persuaded of
its necessity.”
The other surgeons said nothing, maintaining a somewhat reserved air,
as if conscious that they had no positive authority in the case,
whatever might be their own private opinions; but they seemed willing
to behold, and, if called upon, to assist at the operation, since it
could not now be averted.
The young men, their Assistants, looked very eager, and cast frequent
glances of awe upon so distinguished a practitioner as the venerable
Cuticle.
“They say he can drop a leg in one minute and ten seconds from the
moment the knife touches it,” whispered one of them to another.
“We shall see,” was the reply, and the speaker clapped his hand to his
fob, to see if his watch would be forthcoming when wanted.
“Are you all ready here?” demanded Cuticle, now advancing to his
steward; “have not those fellows got through yet?” pointing to three
men of the carpenter’s gang, who were placing bits of wood under the
gun-carriages supporting the central table.
“They are just through, sir,” respectfully answered the steward,
touching his hand to his forehead, as if there were a cap-front there.
“Bring up the patient, then,” said Cuticle.
“Young gentlemen,” he added, turning to the row of Assistant Surgeons,
“seeing you here reminds me of the classes of students once under my
instruction at the Philadelphia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Ah,
those were happy days!” he sighed, applying the extreme corner of his
handkerchief to his glass-eye. “Excuse an old man’s emotions, young
gentlemen; but when I think of the numerous rare cases that then came
under my treatment, I cannot but give way to my feelings. The town, the
city, the metropolis, young gentlemen, is the place for you students;
at least in these dull times of peace, when the army and navy furnish
no inducements for a youth ambitious of rising in our honourable
profession. Take an old man’s advice, and if the war now threatening
between the States and Mexico should break out, exchange your navy
commissions for commissions in the army. From having no military marine
herself, Mexico has always been backward in furnishing subjects for the
amputation-tables of foreign navies. The cause of science has
languished in her hands. The army, young gentlemen, is your best
school; depend upon it. You will hardly believe it, Surgeon Bandage,”
turning to that gentleman, “but this is my first important case of
surgery in a nearly three years’ cruise. I have been almost wholly
confined in this ship to doctor’s practice prescribing for fevers and
fluxes. True, the other day a man fell from the mizzen-top-sail-yard;
but that was merely an aggravated case of dislocations and bones
splintered and broken. No one, sir, could have made an amputation of
it, without severely contusing his conscience. And mine—I may say it,
gentlemen, without ostentation is—peculiarly susceptible.”
And so saying, the knife and carver touchingly dropped to his sides,
and he stood for a moment fixed in a tender reverie but a commotion
being heard beyond the curtain, he started, and, briskly crossing and
recrossing the knife and carver, exclaimed, “Ali, here comes our
patient; surgeons, this side of the table, if you please; young
gentlemen, a little further off, I beg. Steward, take off my coat—so;
my neckerchief now; I must be perfectly unencumbered, Surgeon Patella,
or I can do nothing whatever.”
These articles being removed, he snatched off his wig, placing it on
the gun-deck capstan; then took out his set of false teeth, and placed
it by the side of the wig; and, lastly, putting his forefinger to the
inner angle of his blind eye, spirited out the glass optic with
professional dexterity, and deposited that, also, next to the wig and
false teeth.
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