Except it wasn't. The device in the photo above (and at Mental Floss and At PopSci) is an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteotome, invented long in 1830 before Aitken (1785) and Jeffray (1806). At any rate, in my reading my impression is that the Aitken and Jeffray inventions were more along the line of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigli_saw, or camping "https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coghlans-Deluxe-Commando-Saw/21863744" albeit with a toothed chain instead of a twisted flat wire. Not something with a chain over a bar mechanism like the 1830 Osteotome. Aitken's Principles of Midwifery or Puerperal Medicine (1785) is readable on google books and clearly describes his saw as having a removable handle so that the chain can be passed behind a bone, and that it is operated by pulling alternately on each end.
Many years ago, when about to enter a freeway on-ramp in an unsalubrious neighbourhood of a US rustbelt city, I encountered an unkempt man standing by the on-ramp in grubby workman's clothing, carrying a big petrol can. Thinking that he was in an unfortunate and unsafe position that was also undoubtedly costing him time (and thus money), I stopped to offer a lift to what I suspected was his van some short distance down the motorway. No, it turned out that he was hitchhiking to a different city over 500km away, and the petrol can was his luggage. He was very upset with me that my destination was merely another part of the city we were in.
The boots are wet inside because they are waterproof. And, per the reviews at Canadian Tire, if you are drying your shoes after use they do not develop the aroma
I think the big difference in the USA with regard to Metric units is that, although they are official, there is usually no legal requirement that enforces their use by parties who wish to transact based upon the old units. If the farmer at the market wants to advertise that her produce costs a certain amount "per pound", they may do so, and if "per kilo" that is fine also according to the law. Where laws exist that insist upon display of measures, such as 21 CFR 101, they require both the currently common and the S.I. units.
So no "Metric Martyrs" in the USA, they have the liberty to describe distances in "smoots" and speeds in "furlongs per fortnight" if they choose to do so.
Also the need to standardize for commerce (and calculating tarriffs!) that existed between pre-metric European states doesn't exist so urgently because of the vast size of the US market with its pre-existing standard of measurement already settled.
I find any efforts to describe a country's traditional units as "arbitrary" and SI units as "scientific" as pretty amusing. In many cases it is a Chesterton's fence issue - for example the Fahrenheit scale has a unit size that is equivalent to the "just noticeable difference" in temperature of the average human and the range of 0°F to 100°F is adequate to describe outdoor temperature in all but the most extreme weather in populous places. There is often a lot of cultural knowledge and utility buried in tradition.
I'm not finding an online version of the church guide book that dates first publication of this legend to the 1840s, (well after the lifetime of any who directly knew Lady Anne), but it also is said to claim plenty of documentary evidence in the church records of her 'piety' and participation in educating the young of her time in the traditional church doctrine of life-after-death etc.
On Google books there are lots of accounts from the latter half of the 1800s that call the legend ridiculous, saying that it was quite clearly made up after the fact to explain the condition of the grave. Such condition, they point out, is not really that unusual for churchyards at that time. One such account is from a book by William Chambers called "A Week At Welwyn":
"Here, again, we have an instance of a mythical legend being inconsiderately raised on a visionary substratum of fact.
Lady Anne died in 1713, and was buried here; her tomb being a structure of stone raised a few feet from the ground, environed by an iron railing. To the surprise of the worthy parishioners of Tewin, there in time sprung up a number of sycamore and ash trees from the crevices of the structure. The natural explanation of the unforeseen phenomenon would have been, that the tomb was constructed among the unexhausted roots of these trees, or that their seeds had been accidentally dropped into the earth; and that springing from these sources of vitality, the shoots had, through a vigorous growth due to soil and climate, forced their way to the surface. This, however, was too simple a way of accounting for the marvel.
A superstitious legend was invented, and found credence even among those who should know better. The story ran that Lady Anne, in dying, had professed her disbelief of the Resurrection; declaring that 'she should as soon think that seeds would force themselves from the stone-work of a tomb, as that a dead body should do so, or that trees should spring out of her grave, as that she in any form should rise therefrom/ and 'that if the word of God were true, seven ash trees should spring from her grave.'
It is melancholy to think that such trash as this should still be gravely printed in local guide-books, with the remark appended, that 'the lesson is grand and obvious, and may be received by every Christian without the smallest tinge of superstition.' There is actually a sermonising tract, sold in the shops at Hertford, giving currency to this preposterous legend.
The growth of the trees from the tomb cannot but be considered something remarkable in vegetation. The trees, six or seven in number, have displaced the stone-work and railing, so as to produce a confused and fantastic group of slabs, stones, and twisted iron rails. As observable from the diagonal pathway across the churchyard, the tomb is haunted by crowds of visitors. ...
As regards the calumny which has been so indiscreetly propagated against Lady Anne Grimston, it has been contradicted in a letter from the Earl of Verulam, in the number of Notes and Queries above quoted. (Here, again, we have an instance of a mythical legend being inconsiderately raised on a visionary substratum of fact. As regards the calumny which has been so indiscreetly propagated against Lady Anne Grimston, it has been contradicted in a letter from the Earl of Verulam, in the number of Notes and Queries above quoted (Notes and Queries, Feb. 25, 1871). His lordship says, in writing to the editor:
'I do not believe that there is the slightest foundation for the legend which you have printed about Lady Anne Grimston, to be found in the character of that lady'."
. . . but the surveillance was comically easy to spot. Admittedly it is not that common in LA to see people on park benches reading two-year-old German newspapers -- but generally when they are reading the part of the page that is above-the-fold, they hold the newspaper in such a way that the text on the side near to them is right-side-up.
At any rate, in my reading my impression is that the Aitken and Jeffray inventions were more along the line of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigli_saw, or camping "https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coghlans-Deluxe-Commando-Saw/21863744" albeit with a toothed chain instead of a twisted flat wire. Not something with a chain over a bar mechanism like the 1830 Osteotome. Aitken's Principles of Midwifery or Puerperal Medicine (1785) is readable on google books and clearly describes his saw as having a removable handle so that the chain can be passed behind a bone, and that it is operated by pulling alternately on each end.
Thinking that he was in an unfortunate and unsafe position that was also undoubtedly costing him time (and thus money), I stopped to offer a lift to what I suspected was his van some short distance down the motorway.
No, it turned out that he was hitchhiking to a different city over 500km away, and the petrol can was his luggage. He was very upset with me that my destination was merely another part of the city we were in.
So no "Metric Martyrs" in the USA, they have the liberty to describe distances in "smoots" and speeds in "furlongs per fortnight" if they choose to do so.
Also the need to standardize for commerce (and calculating tarriffs!) that existed between pre-metric European states doesn't exist so urgently because of the vast size of the US market with its pre-existing standard of measurement already settled.
I find any efforts to describe a country's traditional units as "arbitrary" and SI units as "scientific" as pretty amusing. In many cases it is a Chesterton's fence issue - for example the Fahrenheit scale has a unit size that is equivalent to the "just noticeable difference" in temperature of the average human and the range of 0°F to 100°F is adequate to describe outdoor temperature in all but the most extreme weather in populous places. There is often a lot of cultural knowledge and utility buried in tradition.
On Google books there are lots of accounts from the latter half of the 1800s that call the legend ridiculous, saying that it was quite clearly made up after the fact to explain the condition of the grave. Such condition, they point out, is not really that unusual for churchyards at that time. One such account is from a book by William Chambers called "A Week At Welwyn":
"Here, again, we have an instance of a mythical legend being inconsiderately raised on a visionary substratum of fact.
Lady Anne died in 1713, and was buried here; her tomb being a structure of stone raised a few feet from the ground, environed by an iron railing. To the surprise of the worthy parishioners of Tewin, there in time sprung up a number of sycamore and ash trees from the crevices of the structure. The natural explanation of the unforeseen phenomenon would have been, that the tomb was constructed among the unexhausted roots of these trees, or that their seeds had been accidentally dropped into the earth; and that springing from these sources of vitality, the shoots had, through a vigorous growth due to soil and climate, forced their way to the surface. This, however, was too simple a way of accounting for the marvel.
A superstitious legend was invented, and found credence even among those who should know better. The story ran that Lady Anne, in dying, had professed her disbelief of the Resurrection; declaring that 'she should as soon think that seeds would force themselves from the stone-work of a tomb, as that a dead body should do so, or that trees should spring out of her grave, as that she in any form should rise therefrom/ and 'that if the word of God were true, seven ash trees should spring from her grave.'
It is melancholy to think that such trash as this should still be gravely printed in local guide-books, with the remark appended, that 'the lesson is grand and obvious, and may be received by every Christian without the smallest tinge of superstition.' There is actually a sermonising tract, sold in the shops at Hertford, giving currency to this preposterous legend.
The growth of the trees from the tomb cannot but be considered something remarkable in vegetation. The trees, six or seven in number, have displaced the stone-work and railing, so as to produce a confused and fantastic group of slabs, stones, and twisted iron rails. As observable from the diagonal pathway across the churchyard, the tomb is haunted by crowds of visitors. ...
As regards the calumny which has been so indiscreetly propagated against Lady Anne Grimston, it has been contradicted in a letter from the Earl of Verulam, in the number of Notes and Queries above quoted. (Here, again, we have an instance of a mythical legend being inconsiderately raised on a visionary substratum of fact. As regards the calumny which has been so indiscreetly propagated against Lady Anne Grimston, it has been contradicted in a letter from the Earl of Verulam, in the number of Notes and Queries above quoted (Notes and Queries, Feb. 25, 1871). His lordship says, in writing to the editor:
'I do not believe that there is the slightest foundation for the legend which you have printed about Lady Anne Grimston, to be found in the character of that lady'."