In the field of medical science, also, Kentucky in both past and present has been noted. In 1806, Doctor Brashear of Bardstown successfully performed an amputation at the hip joint, the first operation of the kind in the United States. In 1809, Doctor Ephraim McDowell of Danville performed one which was the first of its kind in the world, and of which Doctor Gross in his "Lives of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the Nineteenth Century" says, "Had McDowell lived in France, he would have been elected a member of the Royal Academy of Surgery, received from the king the cross of the Legion of Honor, and obtained from the government a magnificent reward as an acknowledgment of the services rendered his country, his profession, and his fellow creatures." "BESSEMER STEEL" IN KENTUCKY One most important invention or discovery of the nineteenth century was made by William Kelly, who came from Pittsburgh and located near Eddyville, in Lyon County, in 1846. Here he operated both the Union and the Suwanee furnaces, mostly by slave labor, until he conceived the plan of using Chinese workers, which he secured through a New York tea house. As these Celestials, with their pigtails, were the first in this section, they created a great deal of curiosity. Mr. Kelly, having a special knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy, investigated and experimented in the manufacture of iron, and concluded that the crude metal could be converted into steel without fuel; that by placing the fluid metal in a suitable furnace and forcing powerful blasts of air through the molten mass, he could produce the desired result. His veteran forgemen could not conceive of metal being "boiled" by simply blowing air through it, for it had been their experience that air blown over its surface chilled it. They knew nothing of the affinity of oxygen with carbon for producing heat; they had always consumed quantities of charcoal to secure this greater heat; they had buried bars of wrought iron in charcoal in a furnace, where, the air being shut off, the charcoal was slowly burned for two or more weeks. Then the product was taken out and melted, forming "cast steel." So they were completely surprised when forcing the currents of air through the mass of iron intensified it to incandescence and refined the metal.