“In June, 1865, I was recommended by a friend to consult Mr. Hutton, but when I had learned he was an irregular practitioner, I declined; and it was not until October, when, owing to an accidental stumble against the door-sill, I was in much pain again, that I acceded to the earnest solicitations of my friends. I then wrote to him and made an appointment. At the first interview he came to me in the waiting-room and, looking me hard in the face, he said, ‘who sent you here?’ I told him who it was that recommended me to him. He said, ‘Do you know that I am not a regular surgeon?’ I answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, then, what’s the matter with you?’ I told him I was lame. ‘Are those your sticks?’ pointing to the crutches. ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, let me look at your leg.’ He then instantly placed his thumb on the tender spot inside the knee, causing me great pain. I said, ‘Yes, that is the place, and no other.’ ‘Ah!’ he replied, ‘I thought so. That will do. How long have you been lame?’ ‘Six years.’ ‘What treatment have you had?’ I told him, and also that my lameness resulted from constitutional causes. He said, ‘Bah! If you had not had a pretty good constitution they would have killed you.’ I told him that I had seen Mr. D——. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You might as well have seen my cook. He can’t cure that knee.’ I asked him what he thought was the matter with it. He said, ‘That knee is out; I’ll stake my reputation upon it, and I can cure it.’ I was ordered to apply linseed meal poultices for a week, and then go to him again, and happily with the best results. I have never needed the use of crutches since, and although it was some time before I gained much strength in the leg, I am now able to walk as well as before the injury. I forgot to mention that before leaving Mr. Hutton’s house I walked up a flight of stairs and down again, a feat I had not accomplished for years.”
As a contribution to the patient’s point of view, and as a pendant to some remarks made in the course of the preceding pages, Dr. Hood thought it desirable to print a portion of the letter that accompanied the narrative:—
“May, 1871.xxxx
“My Dear Sir,—In my communication I have confined myself to a relation of facts only, abstaining from all comment, but I should now like to say that I think you are doing great service to the public in bringing the subject of (so-called) bone-setting prominently before the profession, so as to induce them to give it a measure of attention, instead of pooh-poohing it, as has been their almost invariable practice hitherto. In my own case, after submitting to Mr. Hutton’s manipulation, I was instantly relieved from that pain, tension, and coldness in the joint that I had suffered for six years, and was able to walk. This recovery, which to myself and friends seemed little short of a miracle, was thus accounted for by the faculty:—Mr. A—— (whose patient I had been) on the subject being mentioned to him, laughed, and said, with a significant shrug, ‘Yes, yes! a nervous knee! we all know what nervous knees are! ay! ay!’ Mr. B——, who, as a friend, had seen my knee frequently (though not professionally) assured all who mentioned the case to him that I might have walked twelve months earlier had I cared to do so. Other medical men accounted for the manifest change in my condition on one hypothesis and another, whilst all affected to smile at my ignorance and delusion.
“Thus much as to the profession, but what were my own thoughts and those of my friends and the public generally? I was like the man spoken of in the Gospels, who had been blind, and now could see I had been lame and in pain, but could now walk and was at ease. I cared nothing for professional sneers as to nervous or not nervous; and had the whole College of Surgeons clearly demonstrated to their entire satisfaction that I could not possibly have been benefitted by Mr. Hutton’s treatment, my opinion would not have been shaken by it.
“Then as to the public: my case having been well known my recovery was quickly noised abroad, and a number of people in the neighbourhood who had suffered many things of many physicians and were nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, sought Mr. Hutton’s advice, and were cured; and this has happened in so many instances that public confidence in the ability of the regular practitioner to deal with this class of cases has been greatly shaken. I cannot better illustrate this than by relating the following case:—
“One Thursday morning last autumn a man came to me, and, on my inquiring his business, he told me he wanted my advice. He was a laborer in a factory who in lifting a weight, had twisted his knee which was much swollen and painful when he walked. I asked him what advice he had had. He said he had been under the doctors’ hands some time, but the leg was worse and he was now ordered to lay up entirely for a month, and was assured that unless he did so he would lose his leg. In one hand he held a medical certificate to entitle him (being unable to work) to go on his club; in the other he had a large lump of dark paste, about the size of an egg, which he said was a blister, and which he was ordered to apply to the joint immediately and to rest at home until the doctor called on him the next day. I examined his knee, and from the similarity of his symptoms to those I had myself experienced, I felt satisfied his was a case for Mr. Hutton and I told him so. He immediately told me he had heard of my case and so many others that he would rather take my advice than the doctor’s. I explained to him that he could not follow the advice of both, and if he decided on going to Mr. Hutton he must on no account apply the blister. To this he assented. The doctor’s assistant called on him the next day, and was very angry that he had not done as he was ordered, and then left, threatening to return with his master, who he said would make him put the blister on whether he liked it or not. This threat however, was not carried out, and on Monday morning he went to Mr. Hutton with several other patients who were going up on a similar errand. He did not return until the last train at night, and I learned next morning that, after visiting Mr. Hutton, he walked several miles to see a friend and then back to the railway station; he rested the next day, and on Wednesday returned to his work, and has been quite well ever since.
“The sentence in italics is one to which I desire to call particular attention, since it gives expression to a feeling of want of confidence in the profession, which I know to be widely, though often secretly, entertained in this neighborhood.
“Would it not, then, be to the interest of the profession to examine into these cases and not obstinately to close their eyes to facts, which, but for professional prejudice, would not fail to see as clearly, and reason upon as logically as common people do.
“I am, my dear sir,xxxxxxxxxxxx
“Yours very truly,xxxxxxxx
The publication of Dr. Wharton’s book, added to the published testimony of so many patients, awakened the “faculty” to the knowledge that after all there was something more than luck in the Bone-setter’s art. The change of tone was however gradual, with occasional relapses into the old line of thought, not by any means without misgiving. When professional attention was publicly drawn to the subject many instances came to light which showed that Bone-setters proceeded on true scientific which were neglected by, if not unknown to the faculty at large. As frequently happens the earliest instance of professional adoption of the art of the “Bone-setter” occurred in America. After the publication of Dr. Hood’s work. A correspondent of Nature[4] seeing a review of the work wrote to describe an accident he met with, the failure of the surgeons at New York to cure him, and his subsequent cure by one he calls “a scientific Bone-setter” who, of course, was not an “empiric,” though he adopted the practise of the Bone-setter’s art. The correspondent in question, Mr. Joseph P. Thompson, who dates from Berlin, May 22nd, states that more than twenty years ago in the city of New York, while swinging upon parallel bars in the gymnasium fell backwards, and to save his head threw out his left arm, thus catching the fall upon the palmar head of the radius, and as it proved fracturing the head of the radius at the point of articulation with the ulna. I sent for one of the most eminent surgeons (then professor and surgeon) to a large hospital, but several hours elapsed before his arrival, and by that time the swelling and inflammation of the elbow had all the appearance of a sprain, and the fracture was not detected. Some days afterwards the surgeon found out that there had been a fracture, and that a false adhesion had begun. This was broken up, and the arm set in splints, according to the approved method. After the usual time the bandages were removed, but the forearm was incapable of flexion, extension, or rotation. Every appliance was used to restore it to its normal condition, such as lifting, friction, sponging, &c., but without effect. The arm became useless, and began to shrivel. It was examined by the first surgeons in New York and other cities. Some thought that the radius had adhered to the ulna, others that it was a deposit of interosseous matter, but none could suggest a remedy. It was some nine months after this, Mr Thompson goes on to say, that he chanced to be in Philadelphia, and called upon Dr. Klea Barton, who, though he had retired from practice, consented to look into the case. After a careful examination he said, ‘If you will consent to suffer the pain, (it was before the use of chloroform) I will agree to restore the arm.’ He went on to say that pressure demonstrated a slight crepitation at the joint, and also a slight elasticity; and this assured him that the trouble was in the ligaments; that in consequence of the long imprisonment of the arm in splints, while under inflammation, a ligamentous adhesion had taken place, and the synovial fluid had been absorbed. He then applied one hand firmly to the elbow, and the other to the palmar end of the radius, and diverting my attention by anecdote and wit, thus relaxing the resistance of the will to pain, he gave a sudden wrench, there was a sound like the ripping of cotton cloth, and the arm lay outstretched before me, quivering with pain, but capable of motion. Mechanical appliances for a few weeks, so far completed the restoration that I have ever since had about four-fifths of its normal use and power.”
Here was evidently an instance of manipulation, which, if done by a bone-setter, would be called empirical, but as it was performed by a retired surgeon, it was “scientific.” If the benefit is the same, why this difference of designation? Let the “faculty” reply in person—“What in the captain is but a choleric word; in the soldier is rank blasphemy.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE FACULTY.
“What in the captain but a choleric word is in the soldier rank blasphemy.”