102 A/A' <(d letters of Francis Galto 



I am tunied ' Doctor ' I find that I can decide on nothing beforehand ; this is not my 

 tirst disappointment. I do not know if I told you what a public character I have 

 become. Four distinct times in walking in Bull Street and New Street have I been 

 surrounded by various juvenile members of the Rag-Tag and Bobtail division of the 

 inhabitants and addressed not with hurrahs, but with 'I say ould chap, gie us some 

 medicine,' also 'There goes the Doctor' and other phrases pointing to my profession." 



On January the 8th, 1839, Galton is still at his post, and his 

 experience is increasing ! He reports to his father his first experiment 

 in dentistry : 



" I tried my hand at toothdrawing the other day. A boy came in looking very 

 deplorable, walked up to me and opened his mouth. I looked awfully wise and the boy 

 sat down in perfect confidence. I did not manage the first proceedings well, for first 

 I put in the key (that is the tooth instrument) the wrong way, then I could not catch 

 hold of the right tooth with it. At last I got hold. I then took my breath to enable 

 me to give a harder wrench ; one-two-three, and away I went. A confused sort of 

 murmur something like that of a bee in a foxglove proceeded from the boy's mouth, he 

 kicked at me awfully. I wrenched the harder. When, hang the thing, crash went 

 the tooth. It really was dreadfully decayed and out came my instrument. I seized 

 hold of the broken bits the boy's hands were of course over his mouth and eyes from 

 the pain, so he could see nothing and immediately threw them on the tire and most 

 unconcernedly took another survey of the gentleman's jaws. The tooth was snapped 

 right off. Well, I pacified him, told him that one half the tooth was out and I would 

 take out the other (knowing full well that he would not let me touch it again) and that 

 it was a double one. But, as I had expected, he would not let me proceed. Well there 

 was another tooth which he wanted out and against which I took proceedings. I at 

 last fixed the instrument splendidly and tugged away like a sailor at a handspike, when 

 the boy, roaring this time like a lion with his head in a bag, broke away from me and 

 the sawbone that was holding his head, bolted straight out, cursing all the Hospital 

 Doctors right manfully. So much for my first tooth-drawing." 



To his sister Adele he writes under a fortnight later : 

 " I have been rather invalided and was sent off for a few days to Moor Hall to 



recruit. I shall look you up at Leamington some of these fine days, but not just yet. 



Hang it, it is now past ten in the evening and a car is just rolling up to the door, so I 



must finish, perhaps it may be a broken leg, so Good bye, etc." 



The next day he adds a postscript : 



"It was only a bad scald. This morning Hodgson gave mo a letter from the 

 Governor to him, and in reply, first of all my arm is all but well, it was an old sore 

 which I had forgotten when dissecting, it broke out of course and then subsided ; about 

 a week or ten days after that it broke out again, and gave me some trouble. Then as 

 to my general health my headaches are better than they were once a great deal better, 

 and I have of course a little hospital fever ifec., but that is all. About my mind which 

 Lucy attacks I shall not say much, except that it is werry uncomfortable, but I shall 

 soon get over all hospital horrors, etc., etc. I am in a great hurry as I want to get a 



