{"id":"01KG8AMGMFQNRRCDCRHTK5HCQ5","cid":"bafkreicple3lmjg3rxucps4wvfcbu3byvigfcl6ugyoxwxabkr3i6abf6u","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9534,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":9476,"text":"CHAPTER LXI.\r\nTHE SURGEON OF THE FLEET.\r\n\r\n\r\nCadwallader Cuticle, M. D., and Honorary Member of the most\r\ndistinguished Colleges of Surgeons both in Europe and America, was our\r\nSurgeon of the Fleet. Nor was he at all blind to the dignity of his\r\nposition; to which, indeed, he was rendered peculiarly competent, if\r\nthe reputation he enjoyed was deserved. He had the name of being the\r\nforemost Surgeon in the Navy, a gentleman of remarkable science, and a\r\nveteran practitioner.\r\n\r\nHe was a small, withered man, nearly, perhaps quite, sixty years of\r\nage. His chest was shallow, his shoulders bent, his pantaloons hung\r\nround skeleton legs, and his face was singularly attenuated. In truth,\r\nthe corporeal vitality of this man seemed, in a good degree, to have\r\ndied out of him. He walked abroad, a curious patch-work of life and\r\ndeath, with a wig, one glass eye, and a set of false teeth, while his\r\nvoice was husky and thick; but his mind seemed undebilitated as in\r\nyouth; it shone out of his remaining eye with basilisk brilliancy.\r\n\r\nLike most old physicians and surgeons who have seen much service, and\r\nhave been promoted to high professional place for their scientific\r\nattainments, this Cuticle was an enthusiast in his calling. In private,\r\nhe had once been heard to say, confidentially, that he would rather cut\r\noff a man’s arm than dismember the wing of the most delicate pheasant.\r\nIn particular, the department of Morbid Anatomy was his peculiar love;\r\nand in his state-room below he had a most unsightly collection of\r\nParisian casts, in plaster and wax, representing all imaginable\r\nmalformations of the human members, both organic and induced by\r\ndisease. Chief among these was a cast, often to be met with in the\r\nAnatomical Museums of Europe, and no doubt an unexaggerated copy of a\r\ngenuine original; it was the head of an elderly woman, with an aspect\r\nsingularly gentle and meek, but at the same time wonderfully expressive\r\nof a gnawing sorrow, never to be relieved. You would almost have\r\nthought it the face of some abbess, for some unspeakable crime\r\nvoluntarily sequestered from human society, and leading a life of\r\nagonised penitence without hope; so marvellously sad and tearfully\r\npitiable was this head. But when you first beheld it, no such emotions\r\never crossed your mind. All your eyes and all your horrified soul were\r\nfast fascinated and frozen by the sight of a hideous, crumpled horn,\r\nlike that of a ram, downward growing out from the forehead, and partly\r\nshadowing the face; but as you gazed, the freezing fascination of its\r\nhorribleness gradually waned, and then your whole heart burst with\r\nsorrow, as you contemplated those aged features, ashy pale and wan. The\r\nhorn seemed the mark of a curse for some mysterious sin, conceived and\r\ncommitted before the spirit had entered the flesh. Yet that sin seemed\r\nsomething imposed, and not voluntarily sought; some sin growing out of\r\nthe heartless necessities of the predestination of things; some sin\r\nunder which the sinner sank in sinless woe.\r\n\r\nBut no pang of pain, not the slightest touch of concern, ever crossed\r\nthe bosom of Cuticle when he looked on this cast. It was immovably\r\nfixed to a bracket, against the partition of his state-room, so that it\r\nwas the first object that greeted his eyes when he opened them from his\r\nnightly sleep. Nor was it to hide the face, that upon retiring, he\r\nalways hung his Navy cap upon the upward curling extremity of the horn,\r\nfor that obscured it but little.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTJS4FN5MFKBD96AVPYJ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMGMFQRC3KTAVEGE2GNCN","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:39.567Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:50.710Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}