the fragments which have been driven in, and
lift them up. It has a handle like that of a gimlet, with a claw like
a hammer, to lift with, I suppose, which last contrivance I do not
see figured in my books. But the point I refer to is this: the old
instrument, the trepan, had a handle like a wimble, what we call a brace
or bit-stock. The trephine is not mentioned at all in Peter Lowe's book,
London, 1634; nor in Wiseman's great work on Surgery, London, 1676; nor
in the translation of Dionis, published by Jacob Tonson, in 1710. In
fact it was only brought into more general use by Cheselden and Sharpe
so late as the beginning of the last century. As John Clark died
in 1661, it is remarkable to see the last fashion in the way of
skull-sawing contrivances in his hands,--to say nothing of the claw on
the handle, and a Hey's saw, so called in England, lying on the table
by him, and painted there more than a hundred years before Hey was born.
This saw is an old invention, perhaps as old as Hippocrates, and may be
seen figured in the "Armamentarium Chirurgicum" of Scultetus, or in the
Works of Ambroise Pare.

Dr. Clark is said to have received a diploma before he came, for skill
in lithotomy. He loved horses, as a good many doctors do, and left a
good property, as they all ought to do. His grave and noble presence,
with the few facts concerning him, told with more or less traditional
authority, give us the feeling that the people of Newbury, and
afterwards of Boston, had a wise and skilful medical adviser and surgeon
in Dr. John Clark.

The venerable town of Newbury had another physician who was less
fortunate. The following is a court record of 1652:

"This is to certify whom it may concern, that we the subscribers, being
called upon to testify against doctor William Snelling for words by him
uttered, affirm that being in way of merry discourse, a health being
drank to all friends, he answered,

"I'll pledge my friends,
And for my foes
A plague for their heels
And,'----

[a similar malediction on the other extremity of their feet.]

"Since when he hath affirmed that he only intended the proverb used in
the west country, nor do we believe he intended otherwise.

"[Signed] WILLIAM THOMAS.

"THOMAS MILWARD."

"March 12th 1651, All which I acknowledge, and am sorry I did not
expresse my intent, or that I was so weak as to use so foolish a
proverb.

"[Signed] GULIELMUS SNELLING."

Notwithstanding this