ABSTRACT
Before bare-knuckle fighting came into vogue–no picnic itself–brawling backwoodsmen engaged in maiming contests. Boxing by the rules in 18th century America was unheard of, so a fight ended up being a barbarous affair. The disputants could use any physical weapon they had, and by a perverse code of conduct, a sharpened fingernail was their most potent one. Indeed horrible to contemplate two centuries removed, these ignorant early Americans actually tried to dig a fingernail under each other's eyeball to pop it out of its socket. Called gouging, a number of witnesses have left written testimony describing the abhorrent practice. Other types of maiming occurred such as a chewed-up ear and nose, or completely severed ones; hunks of flesh ripped out from every part of the body; and “kicking one another on the Cods, to the Great damage of many a Poor Woman.” An Englishman, Isaac Weld, claimed he saw four or five men castrated by kicking, gouging, biting, or a combination of all three.
