Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/249

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NATURAL BONE-SETTERS.
245

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.