But supposing, what I do not apprehend can be the case, that all
the gentlemen of the profession should agree in declaring my method
absolutely useless, the rest of mankind at least, will be obliged to
me for my endeavours to mutilate the wounded as little as possible; as
most people are shocked at the mention of any amputation, or at the
sight of a poor creature who has lost an hand, an arm, a foot or leg,
wretchedly crawling along upon crutches or a wooden leg; and consider
the total privation of a limb, as a much greater misfortune than when
it is preserved, though perhaps unshapely, and uncapable of performing
several of its primitive functions. If one reflects how much every body
dreads the pain occasioned by the slightest incision, he will easily
conceive the degree of horror a person must feel at the thought of
amputation, and why many patients chuse rather to die than to submit
to it[3]. Hence it is so uncommon to find men, like count Mansfeld,
so famed in the war that lasted thirty years, who caused his wounded
arm to be taken off amidst the sound of trumpets and beating of drums;
or like the country fellow, whom Dr. Schaarschmid, late an eminent
physician at Berlin, mentions in his collection of observations and
remarks on physic and surgery, who cut off his own mortified leg with a
saw, very unfit for such an operation[4].