Hundreds of hips have since been amputated after some forty different methods; but that which he introduced has passed into general use, and (though now known under the name of Furneaux Jordan's) remains the simplest, the least dangerous, the best. The first genuine hip-joint amputation executed on living parts was done by Kerr, of Northampton, England, 1774. The first done for shot wounds was by Larrey, in 1793. I feel safe in saying that Brashear had no knowledge of either of these operations. He therefore set about his work without help from precedent, placing his trust in himself, in the clearness of his own head, in the skill of his own hands, in the courage of his own heart. The result shows that he had not overestimated what was in him. But whether or not Brashear had ever heard or read a description of what had been accomplished in this direction by surgeons elsewhere, the young Kentuckian was the first to amputate at the hip-joint in America, and the first to do the real thing successfully in the world. Dr. Brashear seems to have set no high estimate on his achievement, and never published an account of the case. Had he done so, the art of surgery would thereby have been much advanced, his own fame have been made one of the precious heritages of his country, and, what is better, many valuable lives would have been saved. Eighteen years after the Jesuits' slave had survived the loss of his limb, the report of the much-eulogized case of Dr. Mott appeared. Dr. Brashear came of an old and wealthy Catholic family of Maryland. He was born in February, 1776. His father journeyed to Kentucky eight years later, and cleared a farm near Shepherdsville, in Bullitt County. Walter was his seventh son, and was therefore set apart for the medical profession.