CHAPTER II.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE PUBLIC.
“The simple energy of Truth needs no ambiguous interpreters.”—Euripides.
In answer to the frequent questions as to what special good Bone-setters have done in their special calling I have thought it best to let the relieved patients of others speak before my own. First, because they are well-known. Their cases are indisputable, and they show that Bone-setters understand their art. I have culled these cases from various sources, all of which I have acknowledged as far as possible. I have already quoted Mr. Charles Waterton’s opinion of Bone-setters from his “Wanderings of a Naturalist.” I will now direct attention to the cure he vouches for by the Yorkshire Bone-setters:—
Before I close these memoranda, I have to describe another mishap of a very dark complexion. Let me crave the reader’s leave to pen down a few remarks on Bone-setting, practised by men called Bone-setters, who on account of the extraordinary advance in the art of surgery, are not now I fear, held in sufficient estimation amongst the higher orders of society.
Towards the close of the year 1850, I had reared a ladder, full seven yards long, against a standard pear tree, and I mounted nearly to the top of this ladder with a pruning knife in hand, in order that I might correct an overgrown luxuriance in the tree. Suddenly the ladder swerved in a lateral direction, I adhered to it manfully, myself and the ladder coming simultaneously to the ground with astounding velocity. In our fall I had just time to move my head in a direction that it did not come in contact with the ground; still as it afterwards turned out, there was a partial concussion of the brain; and added to this, my whole side, from foot to shoulder, felt as though it had been pounded in a mill. In the course of the afternoon I took blood from my arm to the amount of thirty ounces, and followed the affair up the next day with a strong aperient. I believe that, with these necessary precautions, all would have gone right again (saving the arm) had not a second misadventure followed shortly on the heels of the first; and it was of so alarming a nature as to induce me to take thirty ounces more of blood by the lancet. In order to accommodate the position of my disabled arm. I had put on a Scotch plaid in lieu of my coat, and in it I came to my dinner. One day the plaid having gone wrong on the shoulder, I arose from the chair to rectify it, and the servant supposing that I was about to retire, unluckily withdrew the chair, unaware of this act on his part, I came backwards to the ground with an awful shock, and this, no doubt, caused concussion of the brain to a considerable amount.
Symptoms of slowly approaching dissolution now became visible. Having settled all affairs with my solicitor betwixt myself and the world, and with my Father Confessor, betwixt myself and my Maker, nothing remained but receive the final catastrophe with Christian resignation. But though I lay insensible, with hiccups and sub sultus ten dimon, for fifteen long hours, I at last opened my eyes, and gradually arose from my expected ruin.
I must now say a word or two of the externals damaged by the fall of the ladder. Notwithstanding the best surgical skill, my arm showed the appearance of stiff and withered deformity at the end of three months from the accident. And now my general state of health was not as it ought to be; for incessant pain prevented sleep, whilst food itself did little good. But my slumbers were strangely affected. I was eternally fighting wild beasts, with a club in one hand, the other being bound up at my breast. Nine bull-dogs attacked me one night, on the high road, some of them having the head of a crocodile.