ABSTRACT
A Chicago surgeon recently devised a procedure by which he hoped to transplant a healthy human ear, presumably to take the place of one destroyed by disease. But no opportunity of performing the operation presenting itself, he advertised for two subjects who should be willing to have their ears amputated for and in consideration of the sum of 300 dollars (£60 in 1902). Two persons at once came forward. But then a difficulty presented itself—the law. Inquiring of legal oracles, the surgeon was told by a judge that if he removed a healthy ear from a human head, even with the consent of the person to whom the ear and the head belonged, he would be guilty of ‘mayhem’. As everyone may not know what ‘mayhem’ is, we quote the definition thereof given in Blackstone’s Commentaries, In that classical work it is said: ‘A man’s limbs, by which for the present we only understand those members which may be useful to him in fight, and the loss of which alone amounts to mayhem by the Common Law, are also the gift of the wise Creator to enable him to protect himself from external injuries in a state of nature.’ Another legal authority, a State Attorney, informed the surgeon that the removal of one or more ears in the manner and under the conditions aforesaid did not constitute any crime known to the law. If Blackstone’s definition quoted above is to be taken as supplying the solution of this legal problem, we have no hesitation in saying that we agree with the minor prophet rather than with the judge. An ear may conceivably be useful to a man’s opponent in a fight as supplying a convenient means of steadying the head for punishment, but to himself, especially if it is prominent, it scarcely affords protection against external injuries either in a state of nature or otherwise. We unfortunately do not know how the matter ended. Probably the surgeon decided that it would be better for his own comfort not to supply the lawyers with so interesting a case for argument.
