wife who took care of him—his skull was _not_ “fractured above the left eye,” nor anywhere else—his scalp, instead of being “cut to the skull and rolled up some distance,” was not enough injured to leave any scar—“his whole body” was _not_ “covered with bruises and lacerations”—and finally, the physicians did _not_ say that “he could not live an hour,” for they saw no _mortal_ injury in three simple fractures. But not only is this statement false in almost every particular, but there are some facts in regard to this case which are omitted. Under the care of the bone-setter the right arm united in bad shape, though the fracture was simple and perfectly manageable; and the leg, before it became firmly united, was broken again by the bone-setter in an attempt to ‘stretch down the cords,’ as he expressed it, and finally came under the care of one of those regular ‘scientific’ physicians, of whom our reformer says that “probably not one in a hundred knows how to manage such cases.” If it had been under his care from the beginning, the leg would undoubtedly have healed in good shape, but now there is a large irregular callus, which was produced by the violence done to it by the ignorant bone-setter in ‘stretching down the cords.’[23] No wonder that such a collector of facts as this reformer has proved himself to be, should make the sweeping remark, that “there is incomparably more of quackery in the schools of law, physic, and divinity, than there is out of them.” The other cases, which he gives in his letter, are probably about as worthy of belief as the two which I have extracted. And these two are a fair sample of the degree of truth in the wonderful stories which are told in relation to the feats of bone-setters.[24] I flatter myself that I have made it clear to the reader, that it is no difficult matter for the natural bone-setter, in spite of his ignorance of the structure of the joints, and his consequent mistakes in managing injuries of them, to acquire a reputation for skill, especially if he have some mechanical tact, a good share of shrewdness, a plausible way of _embellishing_ his narratives of cases, and impudence withal. I have said that a very large proportion (probably more than half) of his reputed cases of dislocations are mere sprains. All these he gets the credit of setting, and many of them after they have been seen by some physician. Add to these his occasional lucky hits in breaking up old adhesions, and in setting by his random pulling some sub-luxations, and here is material enough, with a loose veracity, to make up a reputation in this credulous and marvel-loving world. FOOTNOTES: