Ixviii AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



when he had told him that I was an English gentle- 

 man, travelling in quest of natural history, he re- 

 marked that he had been mistaken in his surmise, 

 for that he had taken me for a damned Yankee. 



In the autumn of 181 4-, as I was shooting 

 with my excellent brother-in-law, Mr. Carr, I had 

 a proof that, although a man may escape with 

 impunity in distant regions, he may stumble on 

 misfortune at home, when he least expects it. 

 My gun went off accidentally. I had just ram- 

 med the paper down upon the powder, when the 

 ramrod, which was armed with brass at both ends, 

 passed quite through my fore finger, betwixt 

 the knuckle and the first joint, without breaking 

 the bone ; the paper and ignited powder following 

 through the hole, and rendering its appearance as 

 black as soot. I repaired to a tenant's house, and 

 poured warm water plentifully through the wound, 

 until I had washed away the marks of the gunpow- 

 der ; then collecting the ruptured tendons, which 

 were hanging down, I replaced them carefully, and 

 bound up the wound, not forgetting to give to the 

 finger its original shape as nearly as possible. After 

 this, I opened a vein with the other hand, and took 

 away to the extent of two and twenty ounces of 

 blood. Whilst I am on phlebotomy, I may remark, 

 that I consider inflammation to be the root and 

 origin of almost all diseases. To subdue this at its 

 earliest stage has been my constant care. Since my 

 four and twentieth year, I have been blooded above 

 one hundred and ten times, in eighty of which I 

 have performed the operation on myself with my own 



