Medicine -- Anecdotes; Physicians -- Great Britain
But a more remarkable case of feminine success in the doctoring line
was that of Mrs. Mapp, who was a contemporary of Mrs. Stephens. Under
the patronage of the Court, "Drop and Pill" Ward (or "Spot" Ward, as
he was also called, from a mole on his cheek) was astonishing London
with his cures, and his gorgeous equipage which he had the royal
permission to drive through St. James Park, when the attention of the
fashionable world was suddenly diverted to the proceeding of "Crazy
Sally of Epsom." She was an enormous, fat, ugly, drunken woman, known
as a haunter of fairs, about which she loved to reel, screaming and
abusive, in a state of roaring intoxication. This attractive lady was
a bone-setter; and so much esteemed was she for skill in her art, that
the town of Epsom offered her £100 if she would reside there for a
year. The following passage we take from the _Gentleman's Magazine_
for 1736: "Saturday 31. In the _Daily Advertiser_, July 28, Joshua
Ward, Esq., having the queen's leave, recites seven extraordinary
cases of persons which were cured by him, and examined before her
Majesty, June 7, objections to which had been made in the _Grub Street
Journal_, June 24. But the attention of the public has been taken off
from the wonder-working Mr. Ward to a strolling woman now at Epsom,
who calls herself Crazy Sally; and had performed cures in bone-setting
to admiration, and occasioned so great a resort, that the town
offered her 100 guineas to continue there a year."
"Crazy Sally" awoke one morning and found herself famous. Patients of
rank and wealth flocked in from every quarter. Attracted by her
success, an Epsom swain made an offer of marriage to Sally, which she
like a fool accepted. Her maiden name of Wallin (she was the daughter
of a Wiltshire bone-setter of that name) she exchanged at the altar
for that of Mapp. If her marriage was not in all respects fortunate,
she was not burdened with much of her husband's society. He lived with
her only for a fortnight, during which short space of time he thrashed
her soundly twice or thrice, and then decamped with a hundred guineas
of her earnings. She found consolation for her wounded affections in
the homage of the world. She became a notoriety of the first water,
and every day some interesting fact appeared about her in the prints
and public journals. In one we are told "the cures of the woman
bone-setter of Epsom are too many to be enumerated: her bandages are
extraordinary neat, and her dexterity in reducing dislocations and
setting fractured bones wonderful. She has cured persons who have been
twenty years disabled, and has given incredible relief in the most
difficult cases. The lame come daily to her, and she gets a great deal
of money, persons of quality who attend her operations making her
presents."
Poets sounded her praises. Vide _Gentleman's Magazine_, August, 1736:
"ON MRS MAPP, THE FAMOUS BONE-SETTER OF EPSOM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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