ABORIGNAL SURGERY.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXI, Issue 2292, 13 December 1875, Page 2

ABORIGNAL SURGERY.

[pall mall budget.] '.'..'.. A discovery has lately been made on an island in the Mississippi which shows that the aborigines of America were not wholly unacquainted with mechanical surgery, but occasionally wore wooden legs when: deprived of their natural limbs. In a subterranean cave, hewn out ofa r huge solid rock, which " had undoubtedly been made thousands of years ago," was found, among several other remarkable articles, a skull as brown as a polished walnut, perfect in every, respect, and of extraordinary size, also an almost complete skeleton with a wooden leg. The fastenings of the artificial limb consisted of petrified leather and bronz9 buckles. The.original leg appears to have been removed half way between the hip and knee. This discovery is regarded as extremely : interesting, as not only proving that timber extremities were fashionable in early ages but that a knowledge of bronze was among the learning of the aborigines. It is, however, rather painful to reflect that the state of society thousands of years ago had not even the redeeming point of being natural, but was artificial, as at present, and that in honouring the bones of .our forefathers we have often unconsciously been merely honouring .their wooden stumps.