MY FIRST MEDICAL LESSON.
Straws, it is said, show which way the wind blows; and words, and things
very small in themselves, sometimes show, much better than "two crowns,"
or the "stars," what is to be the future of a person's life. The choice
of a profession or occupation, were we but trained to the habit of
tracing effects up to their causes, will doubtless often be found to
have had its origin, if not in _straws_, at least in very small matters.
When I was ten years of age, my little brother, of only two years, sat
one day on the floor whittling an apple. The instrument in his hand was
a Barlow knife, as it was then called. The blade was about two inches in
length, but was worn very narrow. How his parents and other friends,
several of whom were in the same room, came to let him use such a
plaything, I cannot now conceive; but as the point was almost square,
and the knife very dull, they do not seem hitherto to have had any
fears.
Suddenly the usual quiet of the family was disturbed a little by the
announcement, "Somebody is going by;" an event which, as you should
know, was quite an era in that retired, mountainous region. All hastened
to the window to get a view of the passing traveller. The little boy
scampered among the rest; but in crossing the threshold of a door which
intervened, he stumbled and fell. A sudden shriek called to him one of
our friends, who immediately cried out, "Oh dear, he has put out his
eye!" and made a hasty but unsuccessful effort to extract the knife,
which had penetrated the full length of its blade. The mother hastened
to the spot, and drew it forth, though, as she afterward said, not
without the exertion of considerable force. Its back was towards the
child, and by pressing the ball of the eye downward, the instrument had
been able to penetrate to the bottom of the cavity, and perhaps a little
way into the bone beyond. The elasticity of the eyeball had retained it
so as to render its extraction seemingly difficult.
Most of those who were present, particularly myself and the rest of the
children, were for a short time in a state of mental agony that bordered
on insanity. Not knowing at first the nature of the wound, but only that
there was an eye there, and brains very near it, we naturally expected
nothing less than the loss of this precious organ of vision, if not of
life. There was no practising physician or surgeon, just at that time,
within five or six miles, and I do not remember that any was sent for.
We probably concluded that he could do no good.
The child's eye swelled, and for a few days looked very badly; but after
the lapse of about two weeks the little fellow seemed to be quite well;
and so far as his eyes and brain are concerned, I believe he has been
well to this time, a period of almost half a century.
Although we resided at a considerable distance from the village, and
from any practising physician, there was near by a very aged and
superannuated man, who had once been a medical practitioner. Our
curiosity had been so much excited by the wonderful escape of the little
boy from impending destruction, that we called on the venerable doctor
and asked him whether it was possible for a knife to penetrate so far
into the head without injuring the brain and producing some degree of
inflammation. From Dr. C. we received a good deal of valuable
information concerning the structure of the eye, the shape of the cavity
in which it is placed, the structure and character of the brain, etc.
This was a great treat to me, I assure you. It added not a little to the
interest which was imparted by his instructions when he showed us, from
the relics of better days, some of the bones of the skull, especially
those of the frontal region, in which the eye is situated. Of course the
sight of a death's head, as we were inclined to call it, was at first
frightful to us; but it was a feeling which in part soon passed away. It
was a feeling, most certainly, which in me was not abiding at all.
Indeed, as the title to the chapter would seem to imply, I received in
this dispensation of Providence and its accompaniments my first medical
lesson; though without the remotest thought, at the time, of any such
thing. I was only indulging in a curiosity which was instinctive and
intense, without dreaming of future consequences.