Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1877 — Pioneer Surgery. [ARTICLE]

Pioneer Surgery.

Among the first settlers in Old Pike were John Duke, Thomas Buchanan and one or two others in the neighborhood of where Paynesville now stands. The nearest surgeon was at St. Charles, nearly fifty miles away. In the processes of building houses, opening farms, etc., casualties of a serious nature often took place. The nerve and boldness of character so peculiarly necessary to the early pioneers were never more prominently developed than in the case of the parties above named, and one or two others whose names have escaped my memory. There were but four families, as I* recollect,within ten or twelve miles, and these near together. One morning Duke and another man were engaged in chopping timber, the ground being. very wet and muddy. Duke’s tree lell against another and lodged, the butt still resting on the stump. While chopping off the splinters the tree suddenly twisted, slipped off' the stump, and caught his right foot and leg, literally crushing it to a jelly up to about six inches above the knee, and sinking him deep in the mud. Hiseomrado came to his relief, but had to chop off the log twice before lie could be removed. He was taken to one of the cabins, a general consultation of the four called, his leg in its crushed condition bound up as well as possible with the means at hand, and Buchanan started to St. Charles for a surgeon. The creeks were all high, there were no bridges, and it was three days before he returned.

Meantime, further consultation showed that the sufferer must die unless his leg was amputated. To decide was to act. The only instruments were a common butcher knife—always sharp enough—and a common hand-saw, in like manner always dull enough. The leg was amputated with these instruments only, the blood staunched, the wound dressed, and the man was greatly relieved fully twenty-four hours before the arrival of the surgeon. Being a remarkably athletic man of more than ordinary vitality, Duke recovered in a short time. The writer has seen him many times since—as late as 1837, cn crutches, of course, but as active as men with both legs. —Louisiana (Mo.) Press.