784 THE UNMISTAKABLE MAEK. 



joint which had long ago been so well recognized by those who 

 had examined the arm in former days. The Rev. Dr. Moffat, and 

 in particular Dr. Kirk, late of Zanzibar, and Dr. Loudon, of 

 Hamilton, in Scotland, at once recognized the condition. Hav- 

 ing myself been consulted regarding the state of the limb when 

 Livingstone was last in London, I was convinced that the 

 remains of the great traveller lay before us. Thousands of 

 heads with a like large circumference might have been under 

 similar scrutiny; the skeletons of hundreds of thousands might 

 have been so ; the humerus in each might have been perfect ; 

 if one or both had been broken during life it would have united 

 again in such a manner that a tyro could easily have detected 

 the peculiarity. The condition of ununited fracture in this 

 locality is exceedingly rare. I say this from my personal pro- 

 fessional experience, and that such a specimen should have 

 turned up in London from the centre of Africa, excepting in the 

 body of Dr. Livingstone, where it was known by competent 

 authorities to have existed, is beyond human credibility. It 

 must not be supposed by those who are not professionally 

 acquainted with this kind of lesion — which often causes so much 

 interest to the practical surgeon — that a fracture and new joint 

 of the kind now referred to could have been of recent date or 

 made for a purpose. There were in reality all the indications 

 which the experienced pathologist recognizes as infallible, such 

 as the attenuated condition of the two great fragments (common 

 under such circumstances), and the semblance of a new joint, 

 but actually there was a small fragment detached from the others 

 which bore out Livingstone's own view that the bones had been 

 ' crushed into splinters.' Having had ample opportunity of 

 examining the arm during life, and conversing with Living- 

 stone on the subject, and being one of those who entertained 

 hopes that the last reports of Livingstone's death might, like 

 others, prove false, I approached the examination with an 

 anxious feeling regarding this great and most peculiar crucial 

 test. The first glance at the left arm set my mind at rest, and 

 that, with the further examination, made me as positive as to 

 the identity of these remains as that there has been among us 

 in modern times one of the greatest men of the human jace — 

 David Livingstone." 



