The bone-setter sometimes acquires considerable reputation from some cases of stiff joints and contracted tendons, which are benefitted by a persevering course of friction, fomentation, &c. Physicians often prescribe such a course in such cases, but they do not, like the bone-setter, make the applications themselves, nor perhaps see that they are made. In the one case the course is faithfully pursued, and in the other it is not. A gentleman who had a stiff knee cured by a quack principally by friction, detailed the treatment to a medical friend. ‘I often prescribe just such a course for similar cases,’ said the physician. ‘Yes,’ replied the gentleman, ‘but you do not take hold and rub yourself. If I came to you with an aching tooth you would pull it, and not tell me or my friends to do it.’ There was much truth in this reply. Physicians often give directions of this kind, but do not see that they are followed up by the patient. I do not mean to say that they should do all the rubbing themselves. But they should show others how it is done, and then see that they do it. All the credit which bone-setters get from neglect of duty on the part of physicians, they have a perfect right to. Another class of cases may properly be noticed here, of which I will cite but two examples. A lady sprained her ankle. Instead of the gradual recovery usual in such cases, the joint continued for a long time to be excessively tender—she could not bear to have it moved or touched without the most extreme care. The celebrated Professor Smith, of New Haven, on being called in to see the patient, recommended that all this caution in moving and touching the joint be discontinued, and that it at once be put to use. The prescription seemed to the patient to be a cruel one; but it was obeyed, and the recovery was rapid and perfect. The extreme sensitiveness of the joint in such cases is dependent upon two causes, the imagination and nervous irritability—sometimes almost wholly upon the former. If this case had chanced, like the one about to be mentioned, to pass into the hands of a natural bone-setter, his rubbing and other manœuvres would have accomplished the same object, and a great cure would have been proclaimed.