Chapter 60 - Page 2

aperture, a musket-bullet could have penetrated.

The extreme misery and general prostration of the man, caused by
the great effusion of blood--though, strange to say, at first he
said he felt no pain from the wound itself--induced the Surgeon,
very reluctantly, to forego an immediate search for the ball, to
extract it, as that would have involved the dilating of the wound
by the knife; an operation which, at that juncture, would have
been almost certainly attended with fatal results. A day or two,
therefore, was permitted to pass, while simple dressings were
applied.

The Surgeon of the other American ships of war in harbour
occasionally visited the Neversink, to examine the patient, and
incidentally to listen to the expositions of our own Surgeon, their
senior in rank. But Cadwallader Cuticle, who, as yet, has been
but incidentally alluded to, now deserves a chapter by himself.