Out of the six or eight hundred letters that I have received, just two,
so far as I can remember, were from physicians; and out of the hundreds
of newspaper clippings which I received, not a single one was from any
sort of medical journal. There was one physician, in an out-of-the-way
town in Arkansas, who was really interested, and who asked me to let
him print several thousand copies of the article in the form of a
pamphlet, to be distributed among his patients. One single mind, among
all the hundred and forty thousand, open to a new truth!
In the _English Review_ for November, 1910, I find an article entitled
"Bone-setting and the Profession, by Fairplay." It is a narrative of
the experience of the writer and some of his friends with Osteopathy,
being a defence of that method of treatment in cases of bruises and
sprains. I quote the following paragraph:
"Harvey's statement about the circulation of the blood was met with
scorn by the doctors, who called him in derision the 'Circulator.'
Simpson's discovery of the use of chloroform was scouted by them as
incredible, some even declared it to be 'impious,' and a 'defiance of
the will of God.' Elliotson's use of the stethoscope called forth the
rage of the protected society as a body: the _Lancet_ described him as
a 'pariah of the profession.' The ignorant scorn and slander broke his
heart; but to-day the stethoscope is in constant use, and is recognized
as one of the most important aids to a correct diagnosis."
It might also be of interest to quote the note which one finds appended
to this remarkable article: "The Editor was amused to find that the
_Lancet_ refused the advertisement of the above article, thereby
confirming what the writer alleges against the ring."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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