MY FIRST AMPUTATION.
It is easy in imagination, to be wise, especially at a distance. How
many a surgical operation have I performed _on paper_; or still oftener,
and with more assurance, in my own brain. The difficulties are much
fewer than in the reality.
A fine young man came to me, one day, with a crushed thumb. He had been
at work on a wool-carding machine, and through the most inexcusable
carelessness had suffered his thumb to be drawn in. On a careful
examination, I found the wound to be very severe, and, as I believed,
requiring amputation.
But what could I do? I had no surgical instruments. Young medical men,
in plain country places, are hardly expected to purchase these
conveniences, except perhaps a lancet and the needful instruments for
extracting teeth. I had, however, a keen penknife in my pocket, and
without the smallest formality, I proceeded to separate the mangled
thumb at the joint.
It was a very painful process, and as I now fully believe, quite an
unnecessary one. But young men are not apt to see things in the same
light with those who have had experience. They are not half as ready to
rely on nature. They are inclined to think art will do every thing;
nature, almost nothing. They frequently love to use the lancet, the
knife, the scalpel, and the trephine. Of this fondness, however, I knew
comparatively little. In the present instance, I simply saw it to be a
doubtful, and as I thought, a hopeless case to attempt to save the
thumb; and therefore, without much reflection, I removed it.
Now I shall never cease to feel a pang, whenever memory calls up this
hasty act, as long as I live. Were life to be protracted to a thousand
years, I should always reproach myself for it. And yet I am not aware
that either the young man himself or his friends ever respected me the
less for it. And so far was I from suffering in the eyes of society at
large, I verily believe I was a gainer by it. But I respected myself
less on account of it. I respect myself less to-day. I am fully
conscious I was too hasty,--that had I waited a little, I might have
been a means of saving his hand without much deformity. Nature, in such
cases, left to herself, will work all but miracles, especially in the
young, and in those who have a sound constitution.