The forefinger of my steward is far
better than a tourniquet, being so much more manageable, and leaving
the smaller veins uncompressed. But I have been told, young gentlemen,
that a certain Seignior Seignioroni, a surgeon of Seville, has recently
invented an admirable substitute for the clumsy, old-fashioned
tourniquet. As I understand it, it is something like a pair of
_calipers_, working with a small Archimedes screw--a very clever
invention, according to all accounts. For the padded points at the end
of the arches"--arching his forefinger and thumb--"can be so worked as
to approximate in such a way, as to--but you don't attend to me, young
gentlemen," he added, all at once starting.

Being more interested in the active proceedings of Surgeon Sawyer, who
was now threading a needle to sew up the overlapping of the stump, the
young gentlemen had not scrupled to turn away their attention
altogether from the lecturer.

A few moments more, and the top-man, in a swoon, was removed below into
the sick-bay. As the curtain settled again after the patient had
disappeared, Cuticle, still holding the thigh-bone of the skeleton in
his ensanguined hands, proceeded with his remarks upon it; and having
concluded them, added, "Now, young gentlemen, not the least interesting
consequence of this operation will be the finding of the ball, which,
in case of non-amputation, might have long eluded the most careful
search. That ball, young gentlemen, must have taken a most circuitous
route. Nor, in cases where the direction is oblique, is this at all
unusual. Indeed, the learned Henner gives us a most remarkable--I had
almost said an incredible--case of a soldier's neck, where the bullet,
entering at the part called Adam's Apple--"

"Yes," said Surgeon Wedge, elevating himself, "the _pomum Adami_."

"Entering the point called _Adam's Apple_," continued Cuticle, severely
emphasising the last two words, "ran completely round the neck, and,
emerging at the same hole it had entered, shot the next man in the
ranks. It was afterward extracted, says Renner, from the second man,
and pieces of the other's skin were found adhering to it. But examples
of foreign substances being received into the body with a ball, young
gentlemen, are frequently observed. Being attached to a United States
ship at the time, I happened to be near the spot of the battle of
Ayacucho, in Peru. The day after the action, I saw in the barracks of
the wounded a trooper, wh