tried in the Courts, of a man who sued a railway company for
damages because a train had run over him and amputated both his
legs. He lost his case because it was proved that he had
deliberately contrived the occurrence himself for the sake of
getting an idler's pension at the expense of the railway company,
being too dull to realize how much more he had to lose than to
gain by the bargain even if he had won his case and received
damages above his utmost hopes.

Thus amazing case makes it possible to say, with some prospect of
being believed, that there is in the classes who can afford to
pay for fashionable operations a sprinkling of persons so
incapable of appreciating the relative importance of preserving
their bodily integrity, (including the capacity for parentage)
and the pleasure of talking about themselves and hearing
themselves talked about as the heroes and heroines of sensational
operations, that they tempt surgeons to operate on them not only
with large fees, but with personal solicitation. Now it cannot be
too often repeated that when an operation is once performed,
nobody can ever prove that it was unnecessary. If I refuse to
allow my leg to be amputated, its mortification and my death may
prove that I was wrong; but if I let the leg go, nobody can ever
prove that it would not have mortified had I been obstinate.
Operation is therefore the safe side for the surgeon as well as
the lucrative side. The result is that we hear of "conservative
surgeons" as a distinct class of practitioners who make it a rule
not to operate if they can possibly help it, and who are sought
after by the people who have vitality enough to regard an
operation as a last resort. But no surgeon is bound to take the
conservative view. If he believes that an organ is at best a