226 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1738. 



An Account of the Man whose Arm with the Shoulder-blade was torn off by 

 a Mill, Aug. 15, 1737. By Mr. John Belchier, F. R.S. N° 449, p. 313. 



Samuel Wood, about 26 years of age, being at work in one of the mills 

 near the Isle of Dogs, over-against Deptford, and going to fetch a sack 

 of corn from the farther part of the mill, in order to convey it up into the 

 hopper, carelessly took with him a rope, at the end of which was a slip-knot, 

 which he had put round his wrist ; and passing by one of the large wheels, the 

 cogs of it caught hold of the rope, and he not being able to disengage his 

 hand instantly, was drawn towards the wheel, and raised off the ground, till 

 his body being checked by the beam which supports the axis of the wheel, his 

 arm with the shoulder-blade was separated from it. 



At the time the accident happened, he says he was not sensible of any pain, 

 but only felt a tingling about the wound, and being a good deal surprized, did 

 not know that his arm was torn off, till he saw it in the wheel: when he was a 

 little recovered, he came down a narrow ladder to the first floor of the mill, 

 where his brother was, who seeing his condition, ran down stairs immediately 

 out of the mill to a house adjacent to the next mill, which is about 100 yards 

 distant from the place where the accident happened, and alarmed the inhabit- 

 ants with what had happened to his brother; but before they could get out of 

 the house to his assistance, the poor man had walked by himself to within 

 about 10 yards of the house, where, being quite spent by the great effusion of 

 blood, he fainted away, and lay on the ground; they immediately took him 

 up, and carried him into the house, and strewed a large quantity of loaf-sugar 

 powdered into the wound, in order to stop the blood, till they could have the 

 assistance of a surgeon, whom they sent instantly for to Limehouse; but the 

 messenger being very much frighted, could not give the surgeon a clear idea of 

 the accident, so that when he came to see the condition the man was in, he 

 had no dressings with him for an accident of that kind ; but had brought with 

 him an apparatus for a broken arm, which he understood by what he could 

 learn from the messenger to be the case. However, he sent home for proper 

 dressings, and when he came to examine particularly into the wound, in order 

 to secure the large blood-vessels, there was not the least appearance of any, 

 nor any effusion of blood; so having first brought the fleshy parts of the 

 wound as near together as he could by means of a needle and ligature, he 

 dressed him up with a warm digestive, and applied a proper bandage : the next 

 morning he opened the wound again, in company with 2 surgeons more; and 



