in surgery, an instrument for extracting bullets out of gun-shot wounds. This instrument derives its name from the inventor Alphonsus Ferrer, a physician of Naples. It consists of three branches, which are closed by a ring. When closed and introduced into the wound, the operator draws back the ring towards the handle, upon which the branches opening take hold of the ball; and then the ring is pushed from the shaft, by which means the branches grasp the ball so firmly, as to extract it from the wound.

ALPHONSUS X., king of Leon and Castile, surnamed the Wise, was author of the astronomical tables called Alphonsine. Reading of Quintus Curtius gave him such delight, that it recovered him out of a dangerous illness. He read the Bible fourteen times, with several comments on it. He is said to have found fault with the structure of the mundane system, and has been charged with impiety on that score; but unjustly, for he only found fault with the involved system of some astronomers. He was dethroned by his son Sancho; and died of grief, A.D. 1284.