Bonesetters

Bonesetters are a class of men who often possess a considerable local reputation for success in the treatment of injuries to the limbs, especially in cases where stiffness and pain have persisted long after an accident. They are usually uneducated men; and the knowledge they possess has been handed down by oral tradition, often for many generations and in the same family. Their chief method in the cases alluded to consists in effecting a sudden forcible movement of the affected part. As they are ignorant of anatomy, and of the signs of disease, they sometimes do immense harm by applying the method to unsuitable cases. But without doubt they have sometimes effected a cure where regular practitioners have failed. A detailed account of their methods, &c. was given to the medical profession by Dr Wharton Hood in a book On Bonesetting (1871). See DISLOCATION, FRACTURE.