The Art of the Bone-Setter: A Testimony and a Vindication

“ A NEGLECTED CORNER OF THE DOMAIN OF SURGERY. ”— Lancet.
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.
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.