"This was the experiment anticipated, and one which, we presume, the females thought would end in their triumph. A bandage applied above and below the patella, admitting of flexion of the limb, will probably prevent the displacement, as we have but little doubt had been ascertained by the Rochester females before an examination was invited. Should it become necessary to repeat experiments in other places, in furtherance of the explosion of the imposition, we would suggest that the bandage be not relied upon." * * * * * "Had our experiments, which were first directed to this joint, failed, we should have proceeded to interrogate, experimentally, other articulations. But the conclusion seemed clear that the _Rochester Knockings_ emanate from the knee-joint." The name of the lady referred to, who had some extraordinary formation of the joint in one of her knees, was Mrs. Patchen. (At the close of this chapter the reader will find some letters from her to me.) She could produce a peculiar, unpleasant, crunching sound by pressing her knee forward against some resisting object, and then kicking, as it were, upward her foot by a movement which lifted her dress and was obviously visible to persons present. But it was with great effort and very painful to herself, and the consequence of her having exhibited it to a committee at our rooms was that she was confined for about a week. The way her peculiar case had come to their knowledge was this: One night, when her husband had returned late from one of our meetings and stated the cause of his delay, she told him, in joke, that she could make raps with her knee-joint, and that he should rather pay her than us. She could also make them in bed, having a side-board on which she could press the knee. The next day her husband mentioned this to Dr. Austin Flint, who happened to be his family physician. The medical eagerness to rush forth with their address to the public above quoted, with little if any investigation, is shown by the fact that it was on the following day that the scientific tirade against us, signed by the three doctors, appeared in _The Commercial Advertiser_. It is most charitable to suppose that they never really heard Mrs. Patchen's peculiar sound, because it was manifest to all who afterward heard it at our rooms, that it bore no resemblance to the knocking of our invisible friends, since otherwise there is no escape from a still more discreditable alternative. Mrs. Patchen was greatly annoyed at the use to which this rare peculiarity of hers had been perverted. She came to see me and expressed her deep regret, even before we recognized each other as old school-mates; and the following letters, written after she had heard and witnessed for herself (the originals of which I still possess), sufficiently speak for themselves. The date of the doctors' attack was February 18, 1851. "SATURDAY, March 8, 1851.