Note 24 — Chapter VII · NATURAL BONE-SETTERS.

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.