CYCLOPEDIA OF LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ANECDOTES. ANATOMISTS AND ANATOMY. EXPERIMENTS ON THE LOWER Dr. George Wilson, in his Life of Dr. John Reid, shows by the following instance, that there are occasions on which the infliction of Ivice it had rendered to mankind. The operation introduced by Hunter is now universally practised in surgery. PROFESSOR JUNKER. Many who were personally acsuffering on the lower animals quainted with the celebrated may, so far from being intention- Junker, professor of the Univerally cruel, be the fruit of an enligh-sity of Halle, have frequently heard tened and profound humanity. Till him relate the following anecdote:late in the last century, aneurism in the arteries was treated by cutting off the limb. The great physiologist, John Hunter, was led by his intimate knowledge of anatomy to think it probable, that by the simple device of tying a silk thread round the artery in a certain part of its course, he should be able to cure the disease, and save both life and limb. He made trial on living dogs, and succeeded; he proceeded to do the same with the human sufferer from aneurism, and, at the expense of a small amount of pain, effected a cure. No one in his senses (says the writer) will say that the infliction of a little transient pain on a dog some eighty years ago, has not been amply compensated by the untold sum of human agony which it has since prevented; or deny that he who tortured the living dog, did not merely a lawful, but also a meritorious act. One could almost imagine the dog proud of the ser Being professor of anatomy, he once procured, for dissection, the bodies of two criminals who had been hanged. The key of the dissecting-room not being immediately at hand, when they were brought home to him, he ordered them to be laid down in an apartment which opened into his bed-chamber. The evening came, and Junker, according to custom, proceeded to resume his literary labours before he retired to rest. It was now near midnight, and all his family were fast asleep, when he heard a rumbling noise in his closet. Thinking that, by some mistake, the cat had been shut up with the dead bodies, he arose, and taking the candle, went to see what had happened. But what must have been his astonishment, or rather his panic, on perceiving that the sack, which contained the two bodies, was rent through the middle? He approached, and found that one of them was gone! A The doors and windows were bet? "It would have been truly a well secured, and that the body singular exhibition," observed Juncould have been stolen he thought ker, "to have seen me, at that late impossible. He tremblingly looked hour, engaged in a téte-à-tête with a round the closet, and found the dead man, decked out in an old dead man seated in a corner. night-gown." Junker stood for a moment motion- The poor wretch informed him, less; the dead man seemed to look that he had enlisted as a soldier, towards him; he moved both to but that, having no great attachthe right and to the left, but the ment to the profession, he had dedead man still kept his eyes fixed termined to desert; that he had inon him. The professor then retired, trusted his secret to a kind of crimp, step by step, with his eye still fixed a fellow of no principle, who recomupon the object of alarm, and hold-mended him to a woman, in whose ing the candle in his hand until he house he was to remain concealed; reached the door. The dead man that this woman had discovered his instantly started up and followed retreat to the officers of police, &c. him. A figure of so hideous an Junker was extremely perplexed appearance, naked, and in motion, how to save the poor man. It was the lateness of the hour, the deep impossible to retain him in his own silence which prevailed, everything house; and to turn him out of concurred to overwhelm him with doors was to expose him to certain confusion. He let fall the only destruction. He resolved to concandle which was burning, and all duct him out of the city, in order was darkness! He made his es- that he might get him into a focape to his apartment, and threw reign jurisdiction; but it was nehimself on his bed; thither, how-cessary to pass the gates, which ever, he was followed; and he soon found the dead man embracing his legs, and loudly sobbing. were strictly guarded. To accomplish this point, he dressed him in some of his old clothes, covered him with a cloak, and, at an early hour, set out for the country, with his protégé behind him. On arriv Repeated cries of "Leave me! leave me!" released Junker from the grasp of the dead man, who now exclaimed, "Ah! good execu-ing at the city-gate, where he was tioner! good executioner! have mercy upon me!" Junker soon perceived the cause of what had happened, and resumed his fortitude. He informed the reanimated sufferer whom he really was, and made a motion in order to call up some of his family. "You then wish to destroy me," exclaimed the criminal. "If you call up any one, my adventure will become public, and I shall be executed a second time. In the name of humanity I implore you to save my life." well known, he said, in a hurried tone, that he had been sent for to visit a sick person in the suburbs, who was dying. He was permitted to pass. Having both got into the fields, the deserter threw himself at the feet of his deliverer, to whom he vowed eternal gratitude; and, after receiving some pecuniary assistance, departed, offering up prayers for his happiness. Twelve years after, Junker, having occasion to go to Amsterdam, was accosted on the Exchange by a man The physician struck a light, well dressed, and of the first apdecorated his guest with an old pearance, who, he had been innight-gown, and having made him formed, was one of the most respecdrink a cordial, requested to know table merchants of that city. The what had brought him to the gib-merchant, in a polite tone, inquired |