[Illustration:
C. W. SMARTT, _Photo._ _Leamington._
Faithfully yours
G.M.B]
“_A NEGLECTED CORNER OF THE DOMAIN OF
SURGERY._”—_Lancet._
THE
ART OF THE BONE-SETTER:
A Testimony and a Vindication.
WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
BY
GEORGE MATTHEWS BENNETT,
_Specialist for all kinds of Dislocated Joints, Fractures,
Sprains, etc._
WITH PORTRAIT AND NUMEROUS DIAGRAMS.
London:
THOMAS MURBY,
3, LUDGATE CIRCUS BUILDINGS, E.C.
BIRMINGHAM: CORNISH BROTHERS; WARWICK: COOKE & SON;
COVENTRY: CURTIS; LEAMINGTON: BAILEY;
BANBURY: HARTLEY.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY G. J. PARRIS, 57, GREEK STREET,
SOHO, W.
TO THE MEMBERS
OF THE
WARWICKSHIRE, NORTH WARWICKSHIRE,
PYTCHLEY, ATHERSTONE,
BICESTER, AND QUORN HUNTS,
AND ALL WHO ARE LIABLE TO INJURIES AND
ACCIDENTS BY “FLOOD AND FIELD,” THIS
VINDICATION AND TESTIMONY
IS INSCRIBED BY
THEIR FAITHFUL SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
I have been requested, from time to time, by my numerous patients
and friends to publish some record of the Bone-setter’s art, to
which they can refer their relatives and acquaintances, when asked
for some particulars of the cures effected and the pain alleviated
by those who follow the profession of a Bone-setter. I am aware that
in acceding to the request of those who “have the courage of their
convictions,” I am laying myself open to the sneers and innuendos of
the medical profession generally; but as the descendant of a long line
of Bone-setters, who distinguished themselves in the profession they
followed, and whose name was a “household word” in Midland homes
when broken bones, sprains, and dislocations occurred. I feel, as the
inheritor of their practice and in some degree of their reputation,
that I should not be true to myself and to the profession I follow, if
I did not comply with a request so gracefully made by those who have
not only placed their faith in the special practice I pursue, but who
are grateful for the relief from pain they have felt, the ultimate
cures effected, and who wish to make their experiences widely known.
It was, therefore, with diffidence that I collected from divers sources
the testimony of those who are beyond the reach of suspicion, as to
the cures which those who practise the “Art of the Bone-setter” have
accomplished, even after experienced surgeons have failed; but I was
reassured when I found that these recorded cures, and the repute of
the hundreds of thousands which have not been recorded, but which are
treasured in the memories of a thankful people, had aroused a feeling
of emulation (for I can hardly use any other term) in the surgical
world to adopt some of our methods, which up to a recent period,
they had publicly called the arts of the charlatan and the quack,
and resolved to practise in that “neglected corner of the domain of
surgery” which they had before ridiculed. They did not hesitate to
apply terms of approbrium to us when they were, according to their own
admission, ignorant of our practice, attributing our cures to “luck”
and our popularity to tampering with and trading on the prejudices of
the poor and ignorant, instead of inquiring into their truth.
Dr. Wharton Hood in his treatise “On Bone-setting (so-called)” has
pointed out that even Sir James Paget (eminent though he is in the
surgical world) spoke in ignorance when, in a clinical lecture
delivered at St. Bartholomew’s in 1867, he detailed the “Cases that
Bone-setters may cure.” His arguments were founded on conjecture,
therefore many of his conclusions were wrong. The great master of the
world of surgery, however, deserves the thanks of the Bone-setters
at large, for he was the first to stand forth in the whole of the
medical profession to announce that the much despised and ridiculed
Bone-setters were in possession of a “knack”—an art—which surgeons
had long overlooked and neglected which tended to alleviate pain and to
restore the use of lost limbs to unfortunate sufferers from accidents
and other external injuries. Dr. Wharton Hood appears to have taken
Sir James Paget’s words to heart, for becoming acquainted with the
late Mr. Richard Hutton, the well-known Bone-setter, whose name so
frequently appears in these pages, he studied his method of procedure
and practice. On the death of that gentleman, Dr. Hood published his
experiences with diagrams, and since that period—now some dozen years
ago a change has taken place in the expression of professional opinion
with respect to the art of the Bone-setter. There is no attempt now
to deny that in practical surgery, that what is called the Empirical
School, can hold its own against mere scientific theory. They have
vindicated our art from the charge of quackery and charlatanism. It
would now appear they now want to secure our practice as well as our
reputation as skillful manipulators. I feel therefore I am more than
justified in thus publishing the testimony of relieved patients, of the
almost recantation of the faculty with respect to our art, to justify
those who have trusted our skill and who have seen no cause to regret
it.
There may, indeed, be persons who call themselves bone-setters, who are
ignorant, presumptuous, and destitute alike of skill and experience,
whose blunders are charged on the profession generally—there may
be many such whose names are even in the _Medical Registry_—but no
one can read the testimony of men beyond the reach of bribe, and who
have no personal interest to serve, without admitting that there are
Bone-setters who have both skill and experience as well as the ability
to use their acquirements for the benefit of suffering mankind. The
art, it is true, may not be taught in schools, but it is at least as
old as Hippocrates, if not coeval with mankind’s “loss of Eden.” I have
felt it a duty to myself, to my relatives, to my patients and friends,
as well as to my fellow professors of the art to publish this testimony
and vindication.
I have acknowledged as far as possible the sources from which I
have taken the information in the following pages, if any have been
accidentally omitted, I hope this apology will be sufficient. To those
friends who have helped me with their advice and supervision of these
pages I tender my warmest thanks, as well as to those patients who
have offered their testimony to my own skill and success, and allowed
me to add them to those collected from public sources for this book,
as Turner wrote in his edition to “The Compleat Bone-setter” some
two hundred years ago is not intended for Sutorian or Scissarium
doctors, but I leave them amongst the Caco-Chymists, to boast of their
_arcanas_, but not of their reason, whilst I shall modestly remain
GEO. MATTHEWS BENNETT,
Milverton, Leamington, Easter, 1884.
_ERRATA._
Page 16, line 10, for “Captain” _read_ “Copt.”
Page 32, line 14, for “hind” _read_ “him.”
Page 85, line 4, for “former” _read_ “latter.”
Page 123, line 10, for “hreak” _read_ “break.”
Page 132, line 4, _dele_ “which.”
PLATE 4, Figure 18, “tibia and fibula” are misprinted for
“ulna and radius.”
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.—BONE-SETTERS AND THEIR ART.
“At present my desire is to have a good Bone-setter.”—Sir J. DENHAM.
Surgery in the past—_The Compleat Bone-setter_—Old
practitioners—Sneers of the Faculty—Praise by Mr.
Charles Waterton—Mrs. Mapp of Epsom, her success—_Regina
Dal Cin_—German toleration—The late Mr. Richard
Hutton—Testimony of the _Lancet_—Mr. Burbidge of
Frumley—Mr. Joseph Crowther of Wakefield—Egyptian
Bone-setters—Algerian practitioners. 1-18
CHAPTER II.—THE TESTIMONY OF THE PUBLIC.
“The simple energy of Truth needs no ambiguous
interpreters.”—EURIPIDES.
Mr. C. Waterton’s case—The testimony of Mr. G. Moore, his
anguish, his hesitation, and his relief. 34
CHAPTER III.—THE TESTIMONY OF THE PUBLIC.—_Continued._
“All these are good, and these we must allow, and these are everywhere
in practice now.”—TAYLOR, _the Water Poet_.
Mr. William Chamber’s testimony—A drummer
practitioner—Various testimonies—An Indian civilian—Mr.
Evan Thomas—A Northant’s Clergyman on the author’s
skill—Cases mentioned by Dr. Wharton Hood—Mr. Hutton’s
skill—The testimony of the Hon. Spencer Ponsonby—The
testimony of Dr. Wharton Hood—A correspondent of _Nature_, on
a scientific Bone-setter. 67
CHAPTER IV.—THE TESTIMONY OF THE FACULTY.
“What in the Captain’s but a choleric word is in the soldier rank
blasphemy.”
Sir James Paget on “Cases that Bone-setters cure”—Change
of opinion—Valuable testimony, and strange doubts—The
opinion of the _British Medical Journal_—The _Lancet_,
on the Bone-setters Art—Doubts of the faculty—Mr.
Archibald Maclaren’s Independent review in _Nature_—His
astonishment—“_Is it quackery?_” 87
CHAPTER V.—THE FACULTY IN DOUBT.
“Why what you have observed, Sir, seems so impossible.”—BEN JONSON.
Mr. Howard Marsh’s experience—Mr. Hulke—Dr. Monckton—Dr.
Bruce Clark in doubt—Dr. Keetley—A gleam of truth at the
Clinical Society. 94
CHAPTER VI.—DISPARAGEMENT AND VINDICATION.
“Who shall decide when doctors disagree.”
The Jubilee of the Medical Association—Dr.
Howard Marsh on the Bone-setter—False
deductions—Disparagement—Inconsistencies. 102
CHAPTER VII.—VINDICATION.
“Is this then your wonder? nay, then you shall hear more of my
skill.”—BEN JONSON.
Mr. R. Dacre Fox relates his experiences—Old Lancashire
Bone-setters—What Bone-setters really do cure—Hints for the
Doubters—A Professional Vindication. 115
CHAPTER VIII.—WHAT BONE-SETTERS CURE.
“Man’s life, sir, being so short, and then the way that leads unto the
knowledge of ourselves, so long and tedious; each minute should be
precious.”—BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.
A Bone-setter’s Refutation—The Human Skeleton
and its parts—Liability to Injury—Symptoms—The
_Illustrations_.—Dislocations—Fractures and Ruptures—The
Arteries—Mode of stopping bleeding—Hints for Bystanders. 136
CHAPTER IX.—THE TESTIMONY OF MY PATIENTS.
“—— If our virtues Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike as if we
had them not.”—SHAKESPEARE.
Testimonies from the Lord-Lieutenant of Warwickshire-Lady John
Scott—The Rev. Dr. Dixon, Canon of Worcester—Rev. H. G. de
Bunsen, Rural Dean of Shrifnal—The Rev. R. Skipworth—The
Proprietor of the _Leamington Spa Courier_—Mr. Pluncknett,
etc., etc. 137
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT FRONTISPIECE
PLATE I.—The HUMAN SKELETON 1
PLATE II.—DISLOCATIONS:— 19
Fig. 1. finger; 2. thumb; 3. hand and radius
forward; 4. radius back; 5. humerus;
6. shoulder joint; 7. humerus; 8. radius
forward.
PLATE III.—DISLOCATIONS:— 35
9. elbow; 10. radius back; 11. jaw; 12. hip
outward; 13. hip inwards.
PLATE IV.—DISLOCATIONS:— 68
14. shoulder joint; 15. foot inwards; 16. foot
backwards; 17. knee-joint; 18. elbow.
PLATE V.—FRACTURES:— 88
19. un-united fracture; 20. pelvis; 21. humerus;
22. scapula; 23. jaw; 24. femur.
PLATE VI.—FRACTURES:— 95
25. humerus, lower extremity; 26. humerus;
27. ulna; 28. leg (fibula).
PLATE VII.—FRACTURES ETC.:— 103
29. a dislocated spine; 30. Colles’ fracture;
31. Colles’ fracture; 32. fractured patella;
33. fractured femur; 34. ruptured
biceps.
PLATE VIII.—RUPTURES AND DISLOCATIONS:— 116
36. Pott’s fracture (showing sinews); 37.
Pott’s fracture (badly set); 38. rupture of
the rectus femoris; 39. dislocation of the
metatarsus; 40. dislocation of metatarsal
bones.
[Illustration: PLATE I.—THE HUMAN SKELETON.]
THE ART
OF THE
BONE-SETTER.
CHAPTER I.
_BONE-SETTERS AND THEIR ART._
“At present my desire is to have a good Bone-setter.”—_Sir J.
Denham._
These words, which Dr. Johnson used to illustrate the word Bone-setter
in his famous dictionary, are better known than any other quotation
bearing on the ancient art of the Bone-setter. There are scattered
through the realms of English literature frequent allusions to those,
who, in times past, practised this special branch of the surgical
art, for the art is as old as the history of civilization itself, and
was probably coeval with the fall of man. The assuaging of pain and
the cure of injuries caused by external violence would naturally
excite the ingenuity of the sufferer and suggest contrivances to those
around them. The Egyptians are credited with a knowledge of surgery,
though they appear to have relied on incantation and astrology for
their medical practice. It is somewhat curious that one of our leading
medical journals should have suggested, within a brief period, that
Bone-setters likewise had recourse to charms and magic—thus credulity,
in those who would ridicule the credulous, repeats itself even in
these enlightened days. The intermediate history of surgery is full of
strange changes and mutations; but, apart from the ordinary practices
of the art, (with its cauterization and its cruel operations,)
the cure of sprains, the reducing of dislocations and fractures,
appears to have been practised by those who were neither leeches
or barber-chirurgeons. In the seventeenth century when Harvey was
studying the circulation of the blood, and Wiseman publishing those
treatises which are the foundation of the modern system of surgery,
one Friar Moulton had published _The Compleat Bone-setter_, and in
the year 1665 an edition of it, “Englished and Enlarged” by Robert
Turner, was printed for Thomas Rooks, of the “Lamb and Ink Bottle” at
the East-end of St. Pauls. I have not been able to trace any separate
publication on this subject during the two centuries which intervened
between it and the work by Dr. Wharton Hood, which was issued in 1871,
in a separate volume, after the greater part of it had appeared in the
_Lancet_. Before the publication of this work, the poor Bone-setter had
to endure contumely and insult at the hands of the faculty. Through
their organs in the press they were denounced either as charlatans
or quacks—as ignorant or presumptuous individuals who traded upon a
“lucky” case to the detriment of the general practitioner. There were
some, indeed, who by intercourse and observation knew that Bone-setters
pursued their calling with success; that the principles which they
followed were sound, gained by experience and improved by constant
practise; that they possessed, in the different parts of the country
where they lived, the confidence of the people, though they were not
educated in the medical or surgical schools. They received their
training at the hands of their predecessors, for the art was a special
one and peculiar to several families whose traditions, observation,
and method of practise were handed down from father to son. Daughters
practised the art with success as well as the sons, and success
crowned their efforts, and amongst them all the family of Matthews were
pre-eminent in the Midlands, and whose representative I have the honour
and privilege to be.
Mr. Charles Waterton, of Walton Hall, the eminent naturalist, who
bears testimony to the good the Bone-setters have done, tells us, in
the pleasant autobiographical notes to his _Wanderings and Essays
on Natural History_—that every country in Europe, so far as I know
to the contrary, has its Bone-setter independent of the surgeon. In
_Johnson’s Dictionary_, under the article “Bone-setting,” we read that
a Sir John Denham exclaimed “Give me a good Bone-setter!” In Spain
the Bone-setter goes under the significant denomination of Algebusta.
Here in England, however, the vast increase of practitioners in the
art of surgery appears to have placed the old original Bone-setter in
the shade; and I myself in many instances, have heard this most useful
member of society designated as a mere quack; but most unjustly so,
because a quack is generally considered as one devoid of professional
education, and he is too apt to deal in spurious medicines. But not so
the Bone-setter, whose extensive and almost incessant practice makes
ample amends for the loss of anything that he might have acquired, by
attending a regular course of lectures, or by culling the essence of
abstruse and scientific publications. With him theory seems to be a
mere trifle. Practice—daily and assiduous practice—is what renders
him so successful in the most complicated cases. By the way in which
you put your foot to the ground, by the manner in which you handle
an object, the Bone-setter, through the mere faculty of his sight,
oftentimes without even touching the injured part, will tell you
where the ailment lies. Those only, who have personally experienced
the skill of the Bone-setter, can form a true estimation of his merit
in managing fractures and reducing dislocations. Further than this,
his services in the healing and restorative art would never be looked
at. This last is entirely the province of Galen and his numerous
family of practitioners. Wherefore, at the time that I unequivocally
avow to have the uttermost respect for the noble art of surgery in
all its ramifications, I venture to reserve to myself the following
(without any disparagement to the learned body of gentlemen who
profess it) sincere esteem for the old practitioners who do so much
for the public good amongst the lower orders, under the denomination
of British Bone-setters. Many people have complained to me of the
rude treatment they have experienced at the hands of the Bone-setter;
but let these complainants bear in mind, what has been undone by force
must be replaced by force; and that gentle and emollient applications,
although essentially necessary in the commencement, and also in the
continuation of the treatment, would ultimately be of no avail, without
the final application of actual force to the injured parts. Hence the
intolerable and excruciating pain on these occasions. The actual state
of the accident is to blame—not the operation. The thanks of every
Bone-setter is due to the eminent naturalist for his testimony of the
value of, and his vindication of, the art they practise. His own quoted
case is a peculiar one, but the experience of every Bone-setter could
furnish a parallel and even more surprising instances of cures effected
when the resources of scientific surgery have failed.
Of the older Bone-setters we find some extraordinary accounts, and
evidently not penned by friendly hands. One of the most famous of the
Bone-setters of the last century was Mrs. Mapp, of Epsom, who was the
daughter of a Bone-setter named Wallin, of Hindon, Wiltshire. The
accounts of her life and career, which have come down to us, are very
contradictory. For instance, the _London Magazine_ tells us that in
August, 1736, the town was surprised with the fame of a young woman at
Epsom, who, though not very regular in her conduct (so it was said)
wrought such cures that seem miraculous in the Bone-setting way. The
concourse of people to Epsom on this occasion is incredible, and it
is reckoned she gets nearly 20 guineas a day, she executing what she
does in a very quick manner. She has strength enough to put in any
man’s shoulder without any assistance; and thus her strength makes
the following story the more probable. A man came to her, sent, as is
supposed by some surgeons, on purpose to try her skill, with his hand
bound up, and pretended his wrist was put out, which upon examination
she found to be false; but, to be even with him in his imposition, she
gave it a wrench which really put it out, and bade him _go to the fools
who sent him and get it set again_, or, if he would come to her that
day month, she would do it herself. It is further stated that since she
became famous she married one Mr. Hill Mapp, late servant to a mercer
on Ludgatehill who, it is said, soon left her and carried off £100 of
her money. Her professional success, however, says another account,
must have gone far to solace her for matrimonial failure. Besides
driving a profitable trade at home, she used to drive to town once a
week in a coach-and-four, and return again bearing away the crutches
of her patients as trophies of honour. She held her levees at the
“Grecian” Coffee House, where she operated successfully upon a niece
of Sir Hans Sloane. The same day she straightened the body of a man
whose back had stuck out two inches for nine years; and a gentleman who
went into the house with one shoe-heel six inches high came out again
cured of a lameness of twenty years standing, and with both his legs
of equal length. It does not appear that she was always so successful,
for one Thomas Barber, tallow-chandler, of Saffron-hill, thought proper
to publish a warning to her would-be patients. The cure of Sir Hans
Sloane’s niece made Mrs. Mapp town talk, and, if it was only known
that she intended to make one of the audience, the theatre favoured
with her presence, was crowded to excess. A comedy was announced at
the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, called _The Husband’s Relief; or the
Female Bone-setter, and the Worm Doctor_. Mrs. Mapp attended the first
night, and was gratified at hearing a song in her praise, of which we
give two verses as a specimen:
You surgeons of London who puzzle your pates
To ride in your coaches and purchase estates;
Give over, for shame, for your pride has a fall,
And the doctress of Epsom has outdone you all.
Dame Nature has given her a doctor’s degree,
She gets all the patients and pockets the fee;
So if you don’t instantly prove it a cheat,
She’ll loll in a chariot whilst you walk the street.
Mrs. Mapp soon afterwards removed from Epsom to Pall Mall, but she
did not forget her country friends. She gave a plate of 10 guineas to
be run for at Epsom, and went to see the race. Singularly enough the
first heat was won by a mare called “Mrs. Mapp,” which so delighted
the doctress, that she gave the jockey a guinea, and promised to make
it a 100 if he won the plate, but to his chagrin he failed to do so.
The fair Bone-setter’s career was but a brief one. In 1736 she was at
the height of her prosperity, yet, strange to say, she died at the end
of 1737 in miserable circumstances, as set forth in a paragraph in the
_London Daily Post_ of December 22nd, 1737. The success and reputation
of Mrs. Mapp has met with a parallel in our own day. Just at the time
when Dr. Wharton Hood was showing the English surgeons how to imitate
the practice and cures of the Bone-setter, the medical journals gave
prominence to the doings and manipulation of a female Bone-setter named
Regina Dal Cin, who had astonished the surgical world both in Italy
and Austria. Dr. A. Joannides[1] describes her manipulations which he
witnessed in company with many hundreds of medical men and students
in the Ospedal Civico at Trieste. He says, “No case of reductions of
the femur were witnessed by me. Many cases of muscular rigidity of
the upper and lower extremities, and more especially of the small
articulations, have been either completely and instantaneously cured
or partially ameliorated. No attempt has been made in cases of old
dislocations with fistulas or scars.” Her doings excited some attention
even in this country. We are told that she was an intelligent looking
woman, about fifty-five years of age, and that she had practised
the art, which had been taught her by her mother and grandfather
for about forty years at a place named Vittoria, in the province of
Treviso. After the death of her mother, she joined her brother, who
kept a public-house, where she exercised her skill on the lame and the
crippled frequenters of the establishment, and effected a number of
cures. A medical eye witness tells us that her activity, flexibility,
and sensibility of the tips of her fingers, and her habit of
incessantly talking to the patient whilst operating, are the qualities
on which her success in operating depends. Gradually coming into notice
among persons of various classes of society, she obtained a wide spread
of reputation, and visited among other places, Venice, Trieste, Pesth,
and Vienna. In each place crowds of patients, both belonging to the
locality and coming from a distance flocked to her. She professed
especially to treat deformities of the hip joint, even reducing
dislocations of long standing, whether congenital or acquired. She
does not operate except in the presence of a surgeon. This, according
to one account of her, was a measure taken for her own safety, as she
was once interfered with by the Austrian law for practising without a
legal qualification. A Royal Commissary of the district of Vittoria,
however, gave her permission to practice the reduction of human joints,
and especially of femoral luxations, provided that she operated in the
presence of a physician. The _British Medical Journal_ devoted some
space to Regina Dal Cin’s method of procedure which shows that she
practised on similar grounds to the English Bone-setter, as detailed
in these pages. We are told by the journal in question she first
applies poultices for some days, for the purpose of softening the
tissues; this having been effected to her satisfaction, she operates
by rapidly performed process of manipulation. Professional opinion
was divided as to her merits. Her supporters alleged that her cures,
including the reduction of old dislocations, were genuine; that—as
Dr. Schivardi of Milan observes—“science ought to be grateful to
her for having amply demonstrated by a vast number of facts (1) that
dislocations even of long standing can be cured without recourse to
any great violence, or to the ponderous instruments hitherto deemed
indispensable; (2) that small and modest apparatus suffice, after the
operation, to keep the limb in its place—nay, are more efficacious
than strong instruments; (3) that quiet and absolute repose for eight
days, and moderate repose for other twenty days, suffices to enable
Nature to bring to the new domicile given to the head of the joint all
the materials necessary for the fabrication of the fresh ligaments
required.” On the other hand her opponents, more or less, denied her
cures, and considered her an impostor. Dr. Neudoorfer, apparently
admitting some of her cures of ankylosed hip-joint, states that
the method which she follows is nearly the same as the process of
“apolipsis,” recommended and practised by him several years ago, for
the removal of fibrous ankylosis. She paid a visit to Vienna, where
her proceedings attracted a good deal of attention, and gave rise, to
some degree, of controversy in medical circles. A specially appointed
committee accompanied her in her visits to four patients, and their
report was unfavourable to her pretensions, and resulted in the
withdrawal of the permission given to practice in Vienna.
A few months prior to these experiments in Vienna, there died at
Watford, one of the best known bone-setters, Mr. Richard Hutton of
Watford, Herts. The _Lancet_ in recording his decease on January
6th, 1871, makes the following admission in a very different tone it
assumed barely two years before. It calls him a successful bone-setter,
for “successful he certainly was, and it were folly to deny it, in
some cases which had baffled the skill of the best surgeons; but
his failures were many, though these of course were little heard
of. Following the general practice of bone-setters he diagnosed a
dislocation, or several dislocations, in every case in which he
was consulted; and when, fortunately, the case was one of chronic
thickness about a joint, with possibly partial ankylosis or adhesion
of tendons, the greatest success attended his rough manipulations in
many instances. Every now and then Hutton got into difficulties by
attacking an acutely inflamed joint, or by lighting up mischief in an
old case; but as a rule he was too cautious thus to be caught out.
We have seen some of his successes and some of his failures, and the
redeeming feature about him was that though an empiric, he was not an
extortionate one, and in many cases refused remuneration altogether.”
It was through this Mr. Hutton that the _Lancet_ was enabled to
publish a portion of the system practised by him, and which has been
since partly followed by the faculty; but even the _Lancet_, after
admitting the skill of the Bone-setters and their success, cannot
repress the habitual sneer at their successful and humble operations.
We have an instance of this, when recording the death in May, 1875,
of a celebrated Bone-setter, of the name of Burbidge, who died in
Frimley, Surrey, where local tradition ascribed numerous cures to his
manipulative skill. “We do not know” says the leading medical organ
“whether any _spells_ or _incantations_ were used at the ceremonies
in which he operated, as practised by some of his genus!” The writer
must have been dreaming of the medical practitioners in the time of the
Pharaohs when he penned this. Mr. Burbidge’s father and grandfather
were celebrated Bone-setters.
Another famous and “good Bone-setter” is recorded by Mr. C. Waterton,
in his _Essays on Natural History_ before quoted: “About half a mile
from Wakefield’s Mammoth Prison, on the Halifax Road, nearly opposite
to a pretty Grecian summer-house, apparently neglected, resides Mr.
Joseph Crowther, the successful Bone-setter. He has passed the prime of
life, being now in his seventy-seventh year, but unfortunately he has
no son to succeed him. I might fill volumes with the recital of cases
which he has brought to a happy conclusion. Two in particular, dreadful
and hopeless to all appearance, have placed his wonderful abilities in
so positive a light before my eyes, that I consider him at the head
of his profession as a Bone-setter, and as a rectifier of the most
alarming dislocations which are perpetually occurring to man in his
laborious journey through this disastrous vale of tears.”
The published accounts of voyagers and travellers are full of
anecdotes of those who practise “bone-setting” in different parts of
the world. There is a wonderful similarity in their modes of treatment
as thus detailed. An instance or two will suffice. Mons. C. S. Sonnini,
in his _Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt_, published, at the beginning
of this century, on his journey towards Abyssinia, was sent for in his
character as a physician to attend the second officer in command at
Miniet, who had broken his leg three days before. He found that the
leg had been set by a Copt, whose “curious” mode of treating the
case was thought worthy of chronicling by the traveller. “The patient,”
he tells us, “was laid on the ground without either mattress, bed, or
carpet, but merely on a bed of sand. His leg and thigh were extended
and fixed between stakes driven into the earth, which also supported
a small brick wall, raised on each side in such a manner that the
fractured limb was confined in a piece of mason work, where it was
to remain till the completion of the cure. In order to promote the
formation of the callus of the fracture, the doctor had made a sort of
cement, oil, and the white of eggs, which he every day applied to the
leg.”
Friar Moulton gives a recipe of a similar kind to be applied whilst
the bone is “setting.” Cateron, in his _Travels in Algeria_, gives a
instance of the same mode of treatment. He writes, “On our return, I
called upon the Schiek, Lisaid-Mansor, I found him stretched on a couch
built of stonework, cemented with clay, covered only with a few rags,
and with a stone for a pillow. His leg surrounded with bandages and
herbs, was firmly tied up in and kept straight by a thick slip of bark.
His foot was immovably fixed to a stake, stuck in the ground. He is
obliged to remain in this condition until the bones are united. This
severe treatment is not unfrequently fatal, but, if the Arab has a good
constitution, and gangrene does not set in, he recovers with a limb
more or less straight. The poor Schiek was busy flipping off with a
handkerchief tied to a stick, the swarms of flies which were attracted
to his wound. At the foot of the couch was the Tebib or surgeon,
himself reciting incantations like his Egyptian predecessors, and
prayers over the broken limb. He appeared much put out by my entrance,
for the Arabs think that all Europeans understand medicine; but he was
re-assured when he saw I looked on without interfering.”
There have been many, and are still Bone-setters of eminence in
different parts of the country, who are ready with their welcome and
useful services, when other Denhams cry out for “a good bone-setter.”
The benefits they have conferred in the past on the sufferers by
external violence will be indicated by the testimony of well-known
public personages in the next chapter.
[Illustration: PLATE II.—DISLOCATIONS.
1. Dislocated Finger. 2. Dislocated Thumb. 3. Dislocation of hand
and radius forwards. 4. Dislocation of radius and ulna forwards. 5.
Subglenoid dislocation of humerus. 6. Outward appearance of ditto. 7.
Subcoracoid dislocation of humerus. 8. Dislocation of radius forwards
(outward appearance).]