NA TURE 



\JMay 9, 1872 



standard, and this required numerous experiments by a 

 metallurgist ; it was necessary to know what changes took 

 place in the magnetism of the earth during the experi- 

 ments, and this required the attendance of the director of 

 a magnetical observatory ; a scientific electrician presided 

 over the experiments, and associated himself with a 

 mathematician who was well versed in the theory of 

 electricity. The unit of resistance thus determined by the 

 British Association has now been miivcrsally adopted by 

 practical engineers ; men of science have labom'ed, and 

 the Postmaster-General has quietly entered into the 

 fruits of their labour ; but the experiments in connection 

 with other units are not yet finished ; in fact such re- 

 searches, requiring as they do great skill and time for their 

 accomplishment, must necessarily hang fire if the men who 

 can perform them do not receive some support which will 

 enable them to devote their best energies to the conduct of 

 these and similar experiments. 



We have now said enough to establish our point that 

 the extension of Science is of national importance, and 

 that in its present state this extension is beyond the means of 

 private individuals, but not beyond the means of the State. 

 Before concluding, we ought to mention (more especially 

 since it cannot be gathered from the Times report) that 

 one of our most distinguished men of science, Dr. Joule, 

 was present at the banquet to which we have alluded, and 

 in returning thanks for Science took the opportunity of 

 stating that he trusted Science would soon obtain that 

 recognition which it imperatively required. If men of 

 science will be true to themselves and to their noble cause, 

 we feel confident that sooner or later they will prevail. 



HOOD ON BONE-SETTING 



On Boiu-Scttbig. By Wharton P. Hood, M.D., M.R.C.S. 



(Macmillan and Co., 1871.) 



TO any but the professional reader this title is not 

 attractive ; and yet we are greatly mistaken if the 

 book itself does not prove to the full as attractive and as 

 lastingly interesting to the intelligent non-professional as 

 to the professional reader ; and this, not because the sub- 

 ject is lowered to the level of general comprehension, or 

 written in what is called a " popular " stj-le, but simply 

 because the subject itself is of such wide and varied in- 

 terest, and its whole treatment iii the present little 

 volume is so frank, so clear, and so convincing. 



It will be asked. What is bone-setting, who arc the 

 bone-setters, and who are their patients ? And it will be 

 readily answered, Why, of course, bone-setting is the art 

 of setting bones that have been broken, or joints that 

 have been dislocated, and this is done, doubtless, by 

 surgeons ; and equally doubtless and of course, their 

 patients are persons whose bones are fractured, or whose 

 joints are dislocated — 



There needs no ghost come fiom the grave to tell us thai. 

 Perhaps not, but the answer is quite wrong for all that ; 

 quite the reverse indeed of what is actually the case, for 

 bone-setting is not the art of re-setting broken bones or 

 dislocated joints ; bone-setters are not surgeons, or regular 

 practitioners in any sense of the title ; and their patients, 

 even when they have suffered injury to joint or bone, have 

 been pronounced by the regular practitioner ac/vvf before 

 seeking the help of the bone-setter. 



Having stated this triple paradox, let us hear what Dr. 

 Hood has to say in explanation. 



" A healthy man sustains a fracture of one or both 

 bones of the fore-arm, and applies at a hospital, where 

 splints are adapted in the usual way. He is made an 

 out-patient, and the splints are occasionally taken off and 

 replaced. After the lapse of a certain number of weeks 

 the fracture becomes firmly united, the splints are laid 

 aside, and the man is discharged as cured. He is still 

 unable to use either his hand or his forearm, but is 

 assured that his difficulty arises only from the stiffness 

 incidental to long rest of them, and that it v/ill soon dis- 

 appear. Instead of disappearing, however, it rather in- 

 creases, and in due time he seeks the aid of a bone-setter. 

 . . . The bone-setter would then by a rapid manipu- 

 lation, hereafter to be described, at once overcome the 

 stiffness of the fingers, and enable the patient to move 

 them to and fro. The instant benefit received would 

 dispel all scruples about submitting the wrist and the 

 elbow to manipulation, and these would be set free in 

 their turn. The man would go away easily flexing and 

 extending his lately rigid joints, &c." 



Now what was the cause of stiffness in the foregoing 

 typical case 1 What was the nature of the impediment to 

 normal movement, ignored by the surgeon and overcome 

 by the bone-setter ? The impediment above indicated, it 

 is argued, might arise from articular inflammation, pro- 

 ducing adhesions between surfaces " resting in apposi- 

 tion," and that such adhesions, if so placed as to restrain 

 movement, will cause pain and irritation whenever they 

 are rendered tense ; and, moreover, that inflammation 

 sufficient to produce these adhesions may be insi ously 

 set up in a joint by extension from neighbouring struc- 

 tures — as in the above-recited case. Again, it is argued, 

 " possibly in some cases, the proper ligaments may 

 become contracted or rigid, or adherent to neighbouring 

 parts ; in others, internal or external adventitious fibrous 

 bands may be formed ; in others, muscles may have 

 undergone shortening. Again, effusion may have become 

 solidified, and thus movement be impaired, as if by a 

 state ot things analogous to a rusty hinge." And further 

 on : " If we consider the amount and character of the 

 effusion which takes place after some sprains and in- 

 juries, in some gouty and rheumatic affections, and in 

 some cases of suppuration occurring in bursa, or beneath 

 deep fascia, we cannot doubt that such effusion may easily 

 assume forms in which it will t ie down muscles, tendons, 

 or even articular nerves themselves." 



The art of bone-setting, then, is the art of overcoming 

 these impediments in joints, these conditions of arrested or 

 impaired freedom which not unfrequenllysuperveneon the 

 curative processes of treatment in use by surgeons in 

 cases of fracture or dislocation ; or which may arise from, 

 and be observed only after the subsidence of, active rheu- 

 matism, gout, ganglionic swelhngs, or other local afttc- 

 tions ; and this brings us to the question, How is it done? 

 how are these stiffened joints set free? how are these 

 impediments to healthy action overcome? The answer 

 of the regular practitioner is that which has been already 

 quoted, namely, to rest it — advice which usually entails a 

 distressing failure ; the answer of the irregular practitioner, 

 /.(■ , the bone-setter, is precisely the opposite, namely, that 

 freedom can only be restored to the stiffened joint by 

 movement, by manipulation, and manipulation loo of the 

 most formidable kind, nothing less than suddenly and 

 forcibly rupturing, tearing asunder, the adhesions formed 



