The most elemental kind of surgery is that which amputates a leg when it is broken, not always or often, but only when the wound festers from decay or fly-bite and so endangers the whole body.
"A Little Brother to the Bear and other Animal Stories"
William Long
We have reached a "climate" of opinion where figures rule, where our very supporter of Divine right, as we deemed him, our Count Bismarck, amputates kings right and left, applies the test of results to each, and lets none live who are not to do something.
"The English Constitution"
Walter Bagehot
It amputates his imagination at its tap root.
"The Lost Art of Reading"
Gerald Stanley Lee