Is not this equally applicable to the oculist, the aurist, the dentist, and to the “specialist” of every description. The Bone-setter keeps within his special knowledge, and though he may be called “a quack,” he can point to the results of his skill and experience, and ask if these are quackery? The patients, whose sufferings have been alleviated, _must_ answer, “If this is quackery, we wish there was more of it in the world.”
“Why, what have you observed, sir, seems so impossible.”—_Ben Jonson._
Like the Royal Society, when Charles II. asked that learned body the answer to certain propositions, the medical profession continued for years to “hum and haw” over the self-evident fact that Bone-setting was not only an institution, but a successful profession. I have taken somewhat at random from my voluminous collection of notes on the subject, a few of the printed opinions of those “who were convinced against their will,” but could _not_ “be of the same opinion still,” but wished to modify the self-evident facts or gloss them over to harmonise with previously expressed declarations.
19. Disunited fracture. 20. Fracture of pelvis. 21. Extra capsular fracture of humerus. 22. Fracture of scapula. 23. Fracture of jaw. 24. Fracture of femur.]
In 1880, the Clinical Society, at their meeting, held on April 9, had the subject of “Bone-setting” under discussion. Mr. Howard Marsh, whose experience is elsewhere given (page 95) gave instances of a number of cases he had treated after the Bone-setter’s manner, and which had been quite successful. He gave his testimony to the great service Sir James Paget had rendered to the profession by drawing attention to the subject in his clinical lectures which had since been republished with others (see pp. 69-74). He further said that _displacements of cartilages, and slipped tendons might be, and doubtless sometimes were, put right by Bone-setters; but he believed the cases of adhesions—especially such as occurred after an injury outside a joint_, which itself was healthy, afforded by far the most numerous instances of improvement after forcible movement, and he expressed his conviction that they were much more frequent in practice than was generally supposed. He gave other several instances where he had followed the Bone-setter’s treatment as given by Dr. Wharton Hood. He, of course, was silent as to the practice of the Bone-setters in reducing fractures, and their treatment of cases which never came under the care of the faculty at all, and which were satisfactory to the patients.