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.

CHAPTER III.

THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE.

Two years after this, an aged man, a distant relation, came to reside in
my father's family for a short time, and brought with him a small
electrical machine. He was a person of some intelligence, had travelled
much, and had been an officer in the army of the American Revolution. On
the whole, he was just such a