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

by George Matthews Bennett

The array of horsemen passed on to Watch-hill and found a fox. He was viewed away, and went across Whitehall-park, close under the wall of the west-front garden, followed by the hounds and riders. It was a sight not often to be seen. The day was splendid, although it was in November. The sun was shining and the red coats, jumping hedges and fences amidst green fields, brightened up the picture. The fox went up the hill, out of sight of the gazers from the tower, and was lost in Parkhouse covers. Again the hunt proceeded to Watch Hill and found another fox. Away it went almost in the same direction, passing through Whitehall Park with the hounds and hunters at its heels. There was a slight check at Park-wood. Then it took straight away for Binsey, went up the side of the hill, and passed on to Snittlegarth, and was lost at Bewaldeth.

It grew dark. No more could be done that night. No fox had been killed, though the hunters had got a splendid run. Mr. Moore returned home with his arm in his sling, though nothing the worse for his day’s exercise. “It was,” he says, “a very enjoyable day. I do like a day’s hunting. I always feel more light and buoyant after it.” It was his last hunt.

The various surgeons to whom Mr. Moore applied did not give him any relief from the pain he suffered in consequence of this accident. He bore it throughout the year, 1868, during the time he was Prime-Warden of the Fishmongers’ Company.

Dr. Smiles says (pp. 318, 319)—“He had consulted the most eminent surgeons. They could find no cure for the pain in his shoulder. Some called it rheumatism, others neuralgia, some recommended a six months’ sea voyage, others strapped up his shoulder with plasters and told him to keep his arm in a sling. At length the pain became unbearable. Sometimes the shoulder grew very black. The dislocation forward, which it seems to have been, interrupted the circulation of the blood. Still he continued to work on as before.”

On the 7th December, 1868, he writes with difficulty in his diary—“I was struck down with neuralgia at the Middlesex Hospital, when on a committee for selecting a clergyman. I had my shoulder cut open to insert morphia. I am very bad!”

He was taken home in a cab by the late Mr. De Morgan (surgeon). When he entered the house he clung by a pillar as if he were drunk. He could scarcely get up to his bedroom, and there he dozed and rambled; but the pain was somewhat relieved. He called in one of the most eminent surgeons in London, but, as Mr. Moore writes—“he did not understand my shoulder.” Another surgeon was called in—and still another, but the result was the same. It was with great difficulty he could attend the consecration of his church in Somers’ Town, with his arm in a sling. “The shoulder,” he says, “is not so black as formerly, but the pain is more acute.” Then the first physician in London was called in.—“It is a most painful affection of the shoulder-joint.” The patient already knew that. But the physicians as well as the surgeons could do nothing for him.

He went about, though looking very ill, to the Field Lane Refuge—to the Industrial Dwellings—to Christ’s Hospital—to the Court of the Fishmongers. He even travelled down to York to stay a few days with the Archbishop. On his return he attended a meeting of Christ’s Hospital, “about a reform in the mode of education in the school.” A few days later he says, “The neuralgia came on fearfully all day, and at night I was in torture. Mrs. Moore rushed off in the brougham to fetch Dr.——, that he might see my arm at the blackest. Still nothing could be done. Then Mr.—— came and plastered and bandaged up my arm.” The patient could not write; it was with difficulty that he could sign a cheque. His wife then became his amanuensis. At a banquet at the Fishmongers’, he was seized with one of his furious paroxysms of neuralgia. A surgeon was sent for, who came and gave him chloroform.

At length he could bear his pain no longer. He had been advised to go to a well-known bone-setter. No! He would not do that. He had put himself in the hands of the first surgeons of the day. Why should he go to an irregular practitioner? At length, however, he was persuaded by his friends. As the surgeons had done their best, why should he not try the bone-setter? He called upon Mr. Hutton, at his house. He looked at the shoulder. Well, he would try and put it in. This was new comfort. Mr. Hutton recommended his patient to buy some neat’s-foot oil and rub it in as hot as he could bear it. “Where can we buy the stuff?” asked Mrs. Moore. “You can take a soda-water bottle and get it at a tripe shop in Tottenham Court Road.” “We have not got a soda-water bottle with us.” “You can get one at the corner at the public-house!—you might get it at a druggist’s,” he continued, “but he will charge you three times as dear.” The neat’s-foot oil was at last got; the shoulder was duly rubbed with it; and the bone-setter arrived at Kensington Palace Gardens to do his best or his worst. He made Mr. Moore sign a paper before he proceeded with his operation, in which he agreed to be satisfied whether failure or success was the result. Hutton took the arm in his hand, gave it two or three turns, and then gave it a tremendous twist round in the socket. The shoulder-joint was got in! George Moore threw his arm out with strength straight, before him, and said, “I could fight,” whereas, a moment before he could not raise it two inches. It had been out for nearly two years.

Mr. Moore was taken to task by his professional friends for going to a quack about his shoulder. “Well,” said he, “quack or no quack, he cured me, and that was all I wanted. Whereas, I was blind, now I see.” After presenting a bust of Lord Brougham and a silver claret jug to the Fishmongers’, in memory of his prime wardenship, he set out for Whitehall on the following day and invited Mr. Hutton (the bone-setter) to join him in Cumberland, as a token of his thanks to him for having relieved his sufferings. The shoulder continued to improve. When his benefactor Hutton, the bone-setter, arrived at Whitehall, he gave him a hearty welcome, and sent him away rejoicing. Mr. Moore was no more troubled with his shoulder.

Hutton died soon afterwards, and Mr. Moore remarks in his diary that he was as much struck by his unworldliness as by his skill, for he refused to take any fee additional to the £5 that was at first asked. It was with great pressure that Mr. Moore prevailed upon him to take £5 more.