102 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



1 am turned ' Doctor ' I find tliat I can decide on nothing beforehand ; tliis is not my 

 tii-st 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 otlier 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 

 nie 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 fire and most 

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

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

 t^ke 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 Adfele he writes under a fortnight later : 



" I have been rather invalided and was sent olf 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 me 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 



