Braggin' saves
advertising'. I always do it; for as the Nova Scotia magistrate said,
who sued his debtor before himself, 'What's the use of being a
justice, if you can't do yourself justice.' But what was you sayin'
about the voyageur?"
"Why, Sir," said he, "I made the discovery through his
instrumentality. He enabled me to do it by suffering the experiments
to be made on him. His name was Alexis St Martin; he was a Canadian,
and about eighteen years of age, of good constitution, robust, and
healthy. He had been engaged in the service of the American Fur
Company as a voyageur, and was accidentally wounded by the discharge
of a musket, on the 9th of June, 1822. The charge, consisting of
powder and duck-shot, was received in his left side; he being at a
distance of not more than one yard from the muzzle of the gun. The
contents entered posteriorly, and in an oblique direction, forward and
inward, literally blowing off integuments and muscles, of the size of
a man's hand, fracturing and carrying away the anterior half of the
sixth rib, fracturing the fifth, lacerating the lower portion of the
left lobe of the lungs, the diaphragm, and perforating the stomach."
"Good gracious!" sais I, "how plain that is expressed! It is as clear
as mud, that! I do like doctors, for their talking and writing is
intelligible to the meanest capacity."
He looked pleased, and went ahead agin.
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