{"id":"01KG8AMH6FZANKQ6GAQKNQWWQK","cid":"bafkreidkh22ba5mcyu75atulbzmvjxp2qwkyhwxfk7sk6rcwcakykcrnii","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10017,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":9948,"text":"“He is fainting!” said one of his mess-mates; “quick! some water!” The\r\nsteward immediately hurried to the top-man with the basin.\r\n\r\nCuticle took the top-man by the wrist, and feeling it a while,\r\nobserved, “Don’t be alarmed, men,” addressing the two mess-mates;\r\n“he’ll recover presently; this fainting very generally takes place.”\r\nAnd he stood for a moment, tranquilly eyeing the patient.\r\n\r\nNow the Surgeon of the Fleet and the top-man presented a spectacle\r\nwhich, to a reflecting mind, was better than a church-yard sermon on\r\nthe mortality of man.\r\n\r\nHere was a sailor, who four days previous, had stood erect—a pillar of\r\nlife—with an arm like a royal-mast and a thigh like a windlass. But the\r\nslightest conceivable finger-touch of a bit of crooked trigger had\r\neventuated in stretching him out, more helpless than an hour-old babe,\r\nwith a blasted thigh, utterly drained of its brawn. And who was it that\r\nnow stood over him like a superior being, and, as if clothed himself\r\nwith the attributes of immortality, indifferently discoursed of carving\r\nup his broken flesh, and thus piecing out his abbreviated days. Who was\r\nit, that in capacity of Surgeon, seemed enacting the part of a\r\nRegenerator of life? The withered, shrunken, one-eyed, toothless,\r\nhairless Cuticle; with a trunk half dead—a _memento mori_ to behold!\r\n\r\nAnd while, in those soul-sinking and panic-striking premonitions of\r\nspeedy death which almost invariably accompany a severe gun-shot wound,\r\neven with the most intrepid spirits; while thus drooping and dying,\r\nthis once robust top-man’s eye was now waning in his head like a\r\nLapland moon being eclipsed in clouds—Cuticle, who for years had still\r\nlived in his withered tabernacle of a body—Cuticle, no doubt sharing in\r\nthe common self-delusion of old age—Cuticle must have felt his hold of\r\nlife as secure as the grim hug of a grizzly bear. Verily, Life is more\r\nawful than Death; and let no man, though his live heart beat in him\r\nlike a cannon—let him not hug his life to himself; for, in the\r\npredestinated necessities of things, that bounding life of his is not a\r\nwhit more secure than the life of a man on his death-bed. To-day we\r\ninhale the air with expanding lungs, and life runs through us like a\r\nthousand Niles; but to-morrow we may collapse in death, and all our\r\nveins be dry as the Brook Kedron in a drought.\r\n\r\n“And now, young gentlemen,” said Cuticle, turning to the Assistant\r\nSurgeons, “while the patient is coming to, permit me to describe to you\r\nthe highly-interesting operation I am about to perform.”\r\n\r\n“Mr. Surgeon of the Fleet,” said Surgeon Bandage, “if you are about to\r\nlecture, permit me to present you with your teeth; they will make your\r\ndiscourse more readily understood.” And so saying, Bandage, with a bow,\r\nplaced the two semicircles of ivory into Cuticle’s hands.\r\n\r\n“Thank you, Surgeon Bandage,” said Cuticle, and slipped the ivory into\r\nits place.\r\n\r\n“In the first place, now, young gentlemen, let me direct your attention\r\nto the excellent preparation before you. I have had it unpacked from\r\nits case, and set up here from my state-room, where it occupies the\r\nspare berth; and all this for your express benefit, young gentlemen.\r\nThis skeleton I procured in person from the Hunterian department of the\r\nRoyal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we\r\nhave no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify\r\nat a juncture like this”—casting an almost benignant glance toward the\r\npatient, now beginning to open his eyes; “but let me point out to you\r\nupon this thigh-bone”—disengaging it from the skeleton, with a gentle\r\ntwist—“the precise place where I propose to perform the operation.\r\n_Here_, young gentlemen, _here_ is the place. You perceive it is very\r\nnear the point of articulation with the trunk.”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” interposed Surgeon Wedge, rising on his toes, “yes, young\r\ngentlemen, the point of articulation with the _acetabulum_ of the _os\r\ninnominatum_.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTJS3AFC49VHXZ381X49","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMGMFH4Z26WP7EVK7S8DS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMH6FM4GT8PFMV7H0CEZB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:40.143Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:51.247Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}