I will give two cases in illustration. These cases appeared in a letter in a newspaper correspondence, in which a self-styled reformer of some note undertakes to abuse the regular clergy, and regular doctors, and laud Thompsonism, and natural bone-setting.
One of these cases is that of a boy who was born with a club foot. He states in regard to him, that, after the best surgical skill of Philadelphia and New York had been tried upon him in vain, he was brought to the bone-setter, and in the course of a few weeks the boy (then six years old), was perfectly cured. This statement I know to be false. The bone-setter, so far from curing the boy, did him no good. And further, the deformity of the foot has since been relieved, so far as it can be, by the skill of one of those regular surgeons, of whom the bone-setter so modestly said to our wise reformer, “that during a constant practice of more than thirty years he has scarcely found one who understood his business,” while he himself had “not in a single instance,” among all his cases, committed any error.
The other case was that of a man of whom it is said that he “was caught by one of his arms by the belt of the picker, and carried over the drum [shaft?] upwards of one hundred times.” The bone-setter “found that his shoulders, ribs and breast, were all badly lacerated—his left arm broken near the shoulder—his right arm broken in three places between the shoulder and elbow, much hemorrhage having taken place—his right knee broken in pieces, and partially dislocated—two of the bones of the toes of his right foot loose in his stockings—a compound fracture of the left leg—one of the condyles of the pelvis, near the back knocked off—his skull fractured above his left eye—his scalp cut to the skull, and rolled up some distance—and his whole body covered with bruises and lacerations.” It is also stated that “the physicians who were summoned, said he could not live an hour, and declined attempting to relieve him.” Perhaps they would have taken this view of the case if the facts had been as our reporter has stated them. But they were not. Nearly all of this statement is false. That the man was carried over that shaft “upwards of one hundred times,” none but a stark-mad reformer is foolish enough to believe—the man’s shoulders, ribs and breast were not “badly lacerated”—his right arm was not “broken in three places,” but only in one, and that not badly—there was not “much hemorrhage,” but almost none—his right knee was not “broken in pieces,” and was not “partially dislocated,” but there was merely a small abrasion of the knee-pan—there were not “two bones in his stockings,” but one small piece of bone in one stocking—there was not “a compound fracture of the left leg,” but a simple one—“one of the condyles of the pelvis near the back” was not “knocked off,” for there is no such thing in the body, and besides, the man himself says that there was no injury of the back, and so says his wife who took care of him—his skull was not “fractured above the left eye,” nor anywhere else—his scalp, instead of being “cut to the skull and rolled up some distance,” was not enough injured to leave any scar—“his whole body” was not “covered with bruises and lacerations”—and finally, the physicians did not say that “he could not live an hour,” for they saw no mortal injury in three simple fractures. But not only is this statement false in almost every particular, but there are some facts in regard to this case which are omitted. Under the care of the bone-setter the right arm united in bad shape, though the fracture was simple and perfectly manageable; and the leg, before it became firmly united, was broken again by the bone-setter in an attempt to ‘stretch down the cords,’ as he expressed it, and finally came under the care of one of those regular ‘scientific’ physicians, of whom our reformer says that “probably not one in a hundred knows how to manage such cases.” If it had been under his care from the beginning, the leg would undoubtedly have healed in good shape, but now there is a large irregular callus, which was produced by the violence done to it by the ignorant bone-setter in ‘stretching down the cords.’[23]
No wonder that such a collector of facts as this reformer has proved himself to be, should make the sweeping remark, that “there is incomparably more of quackery in the schools of law, physic, and divinity, than there is out of them.” The other cases, which he gives in his letter, are probably about as worthy of belief as the two which I have extracted. And these two are a fair sample of the degree of truth in the wonderful stories which are told in relation to the feats of bone-setters.[24]
I flatter myself that I have made it clear to the reader, that it is no difficult matter for the natural bone-setter, in spite of his ignorance of the structure of the joints, and his consequent mistakes in managing injuries of them, to acquire a reputation for skill, especially if he have some mechanical tact, a good share of shrewdness, a plausible way of embellishing his narratives of cases, and impudence withal. I have said that a very large proportion (probably more than half) of his reputed cases of dislocations are mere sprains. All these he gets the credit of setting, and many of them after they have been seen by some physician. Add to these his occasional lucky hits in breaking up old adhesions, and in setting by his random pulling some sub-luxations, and here is material enough, with a loose veracity, to make up a reputation in this credulous and marvel-loving world.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Some of my readers will require an explanation of these terms. In a case of fracture the broken ends often slip by each other. We draw therefore upon the two portions to bring them into their proper position. The traction exerted upon the portion the farthest from the body is called extension, while that which is exerted upon the other portion is called counter-extension. So when a bone is dislocated the force exerted in drawing the head of it from its position is called extension, while the force by which its fellow bone is drawn in the opposite direction is called counter-extension.
[23] It will be proper for me to state that I had no personal interest in this case, and I became acquainted with the facts in an accidental call upon the family of the patient some time after the accident.
[24] Some of the certificates of the bone-setter, like those of other quacks, are of the most unwarrantable character.
A physician of great eminence was once called to see a clergyman who had sprained his wrist. The sprain was a bad one, and produced considerable inflammation, and therefore gave him great pain. The treatment which my friend pursued relieved the patient, and nothing was wanting but rest to complete the cure. But he very imprudently and in direct disobedience to his physician’s injunctions, drove a spirited horse on quite a long ride with his lame wrist, and of course renewed in some degree the soreness and inflammation. He now put himself under the care of a bone-setter, and after his wrist got well, forgetting the gratuitous as well as successful services of his physician, this clergyman gave the quack a laudatory puff in one of the public papers.