But, Archibald, no man can ride well
who straddles in this manner like the Colossus of Rhodes. You should
depend less on your stirrup, and keep your seat by the power of
the knee."
"With proper deference to your experience, Captain Lawton," returned the
surgeon, "I conceive myself to be no incompetent judge of muscular
action, whether in the knee, or in any other part of the human frame.
And although but humbly educated, I am not now to learn that the wider
the base, the more firm is the superstructure."
"Would you fill a highway, in this manner, with one pair of legs, when
half a dozen might pass together in comfort, stretching them abroad like
the scythes of the ancient chariot wheels?"
The allusion to the practice of the ancients somewhat softened the
indignation of the surgeon, and he replied, with rather less hauteur,--
"You should speak with reverence of the usages of those who have gone
before us, and who, however ignorant they were in matters of science,
and particularly that of surgery, yet furnished many brilliant hints to
our own improvements. Now, sir, I have no doubt that Galen has operated
on wounds occasioned by these very scythes that you mention, although we
can find no evidence of the fact in contemporary writers. Ah! they must
have given dreadful injuries, and, I doubt not, caused great uneasiness
to the medical gentlemen of that day.
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