Year: 1871

copy of the New York World:


On the top Of high peak in the


Oriental seas-whence our great
forefather with Eve under his arm


stepped from the island paradise


into continental Asia and the wicked


world before him is a holy temple,


and there. in one of its most gor-


geous shrines. is kept and to be kept


in secula seculorum the sacred tooth


of Buddha. Whether it is ''molar'


or ''bicuspid'' or an ''incisor," -"


whether it was by some unlineal


hand wrenched from the prophets


gums or is the surviving witness of
his masticatOry existence, we know


not; but there it IS, and there by pill


grims from all climes it is worship
ped. No other remnant of humani-


tv so remote survives. Next to the


teeth in point of durability, as we all
know, are bones; and to the preser-


vatiOn of classic and sacred bones


we are glad to see the attention of


this irreverent nation of ours is at
| last turning, not merely in ceme


teries and vaults and tombs, but in


museums and above ground and in
the sight of man. We are to have
our Buddha's tooth


We learn this from that eminentlv
loyal magazine called Lippincott's-
published in Philadelphia, though
edited, we believe. in Boston, literary
ability being the only domestic fab


ric not protected in Pennsylvania
where We find lovely description of


the Army Medical Museum at Wash
ington, filed, as We learn, with all


the attractions Of normal anatomi-
cal preparations, ''thin sections of
diseased tissues. ION the pondura
scale" with the ''grammatophera
subtillisima. the surrisella gemma.
and the nineteenth band of Nobert's


plate" But this is not all. There is
sentimental side of this chamber
of horrors. On shelf by them
selves for rank will even survive in
ashes stand side by side speci-
mems derived from the mutilated
limbs of seven general officers, put


there with the full appreciation OF


the distinguished gentlemen whose


wounds furnished them" No names
are given, no members specified; all
we know is the owners still survive,


and that. as the commemorative
writer sagaciouslv informs us. mo
critical eye can distinguish them
from the Simular mutilatiOnS of
subalternS. or even private soldiers"
Milroy's tibia. slightly hit as he ran


away from Winchester, cannot be
told from him who beat the retreat
alongside. But the interest vastly


intensities when we hear that, cas- a
memorable example. when at Gettys-
burg the gallant leader of one of our
army corps was struck down by q
fragment of shell which shattered
the bones of his leg to such an ex-
tent as to render amputation neces-
sarv. the first though of the sufferer
after the shock of the operation was
of the museum at Washington, to
which he ordered the broken bone
to be sent, in the hope that his mis-
fortune might prove the gain of fell
low-sOldiers in the future" While
modesty here, too, wells the name of
him to whom once belong the frac-
tured leg. no one can doubt whose it
is. The touching wish expressed in
the agony of amputation alone re-
veals it: "Don't give up the ship
Kiss me, Hardy" Il die content
are the sentimental. impractical ut J
terances of wounded heroes on shore I
and atioat: but who but our Sickles
would. the moment the tourniquet |
was taken OF, think of sending his |
'astragulus" to the anatomical mus
cum? Then such leg, Such FOOT
What associations cling around it.
Is it not the foot which he put |
down so firmly when Mr.. Peabody |
asked him to do honor to royalty?
Is it not the leg, or one of them, on
which he refused to stand at the
Star and Garter when the Queens
health was drunk? Is it not the leg
on which he pivoted on that Sabbath
day when he shot to death an un-
armed man in the streets of Wash
ington? Is it not that which did
such good service when Stonewall
jackson broke in on the Eleventh
Corps at Charlottesville, and the
loss of which saved its proprietor
from court-martial at Gettysburg?
All we know is, it is not the leg, for
it survives, whose pregnant hinges
crooked to radical President and
fawned successfully for office. Still
it is precious member. May it last
as long as Buddha's tooth, and have
as many intelligent worshippers! |