Quackery Unmasked/Chapter XXI
CHAPTER XXI.
NATURAL BONE-SETTERS.
There are men of a certain class, who, for aught I know, may be found in every part of the world, who are called Bone-setters. Some of these men possess a smattering of anatomical knowledge, and others none at all. Some have served as dressers in hospitals—some have practised as farriers; and others, even the most celebrated, have had no opportunities whatever of acquiring medical knowledge, and are profoundly ignorant of the first principles of anatomy and surgery. Some have acquired fortunes by their practice, and even females have in some instances become celebrated bone-setters. In most instances those who profess this peculiar skill do not pretend to have acquired it by study or other legitimate means, but hold that it is a natural endowment or family gift. And this absurd notion is extensively entertained by the public. In Old England, the Tailors and the Whitworths are among the most eminent; in New England, the Sweets are the most celebrated. It is believed that there are, at the present time, about a dozen of that name who claim to possess the skill which they have inherited from a common ancestor, who lived about one hundred years ago in the town of South Kingston, in the State of Rhode Island. The ancestor of this race of Bone-setters was an illiterate man and had no knowledge of medicine or surgery, and his children and grandchildren have ever continued in the same state of plebeian ignorance. Yet notwithstanding this, the public pertinaciously sustain them in their pretensions to an innate family endowment. That some of these men have sometimes, by accident, reduced dislocations, I am not disposed to doubt; but having no knowledge of anatomy, they can have no surgical skill, and their success can have been no greater than might be acquired by any resolute and reckless individuals.
The public cannot be made to understand that bone-setting is purely a mechanical operation, for the proper performance of which, anatomical and surgical knowledge are indispensable. Everybody knows that no one is competent to repair a watch, or other machine, unless he has a full knowledge of all its parts and their connections; but the public appear to believe that an individual may have sufficient skill to repair the human frame, without any thorough knowledge of its construction. They seem to suppose that bone-setting is a kind of talismanic process, which does not come within the rules of scientific or mechanical operations. In consequence of this unfounded opinion, good surgeons have often been set aside to make room for some one who bore the magical name of Sweet. If any one attempts to convince the bystanders that their confidence is misplaced, he is met with reports of cases which in their view overthrow all arguments and explanations.
Take a case in point. A man bruises his foot or sprains his ancle. A surgeon is called, and informs the patient that there is no fracture nor dislocation, and advises a proper course of treatment. The patient continues lame, and perhaps a second or third physician is called, and confirms the diagnosis of the first; but his officious neighbors will never let him alone—they assure him that there must be some "bone out," and advise him by all means to send for one of the "natural bone-setters," lest by trusting educated surgeons he should become a cripple for life. Some one of this family of doctors is brought, and the neighbors of all ages, sexes and conditions are soon collected to witness the performance. The doctor is sure to find one or more bones out. When he has made sufficient preparation, he seizes the limb of his patient, pulls and twists it in all manner of ways, until the anxious bystanders hear it snap and crack, and the patient is fully satisfied that enough has been done. He is now told that all is right, and that he can and must walk; he makes the attempt, and finds he can. The Bone-setter exults in his achievement, and all the bystanders vouch for the skilful performance of the wonderful operation. "All the physicians about," say they, "were called, but none of them knew that any bone was out; Dr. Sweet set six or eight in the foot, or perhaps four or five about the knee joint. There can be no mistake about it—they heard and counted every snap, as bone after bone returned to its place."
Perhaps few if any cases have ever been known, where one of that class of Bone-setters has been called and found no bone out of place. Many of their most remarkable cures have been accomplished several weeks, or perhaps months, after the injury. It is well known that in many cases of sprains, after the active inflammation has subsided, friction and passive motion are some of the best means that can be made use of—and this explains the modus operandi of many of their cures. A man has kept his foot upon a pillow a fortnight, and thinks he cannot move it. The Bone-setter extends and flexes, twists and rotates it, until the patient can endure it no longer; and thinking that all must certainly be right after so much agony, he attempts to use the limb—his morbid sensibility has been overcome by the manipulations—he puts his foot to the floor, and, to his own astonishment, he finds he can walk. He believes himself cured, and therefore in due time gets well.
Job Sweet, the original ancestor of this family of Bone-setters, as I have said before, was an illiterate man. At the time when he commenced bone-setting in South Kingston, the town must have been thinly inhabited—probably its physicians had not much knowledge of anatomy and no great skill in surgery, and might not be much better qualified to operate in cases of fracture or dislocation, than unprofessional men guided alone by their own common sense. Under such circumstances, the original operator may sometimes have reduced dislocations, and have become in his time the best Bone-setter in all that region.
The history of the Sweets is essentially the history of all professed Bone-setters, and will answer, mutatis mutandis, for various other names and places. Their operations are of the hocus pocus kind, and the deception is generally tangible, and may be shown by ocular demonstration. Yet notwithstanding all this, the masses shut their eyes and stop their ears against any exposure of the ignorance or fraud of this class of impostors. I am told that the Sweets have gained a wide reputation, and that many worthy men have confidence in their skill. So the tar water of Bishop Berkley, the weapon ointment of Hildanus, and the metallic tractors of Perkins, gained a higher and wider celebrity. So Boyle held that the thigh bone of an executed criminal was a specific in dysentery, Bacon believed in charms and amulets, and Martin Luther in the efficacy of toads.