Vindication of the pre-eminent efficacy of manual operations in the cure of rheumatic and nervous diseases : against the malignant and unprincipled attempts of certain members of the medical profession to decry and obstruct the practice / by William Balfour.

Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vindication of the pre-eminent efficacy of manual operations in the cure of rheumatic and nervous diseases : against the malignant and unprincipled attempts of certain members of the medical profession to decry and obstruct the practice / by William Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    out our doctors1 leave.’’ I shall here give two or three cases, in illustration. 1st. A young lady, in a northern county, came to com- plain of pain and weakness in her back, right thigh and leg, without any known cause. In defiance of all her me- dical advisers could do, she continued to grow worse for eighteen months. A consultation was then held, when her case was decided to be hopeless. On it being suggested that I should be called in, her doctors deprecated the idea, assuring the patient and her friends, that my practice was inapplicable in her case, and that it would certainly kill her. She came to me, notwithstanding; and returned home, in three weeks, perfectly well, and has continued so for up- wards of ten years. Now, it irresistibly follows, either that this young lady’s doctors were wicked, unprincipled men ; or that they were profoundly ignorant of the efficacy and safety of my prac- tice. In charity, I shall assume the latter as the true alternative; and I then ask, How came they to pronounce a practice inapplicable, nay, killing, about which they knew absolutely nothing? The lady never once complained under my hands. But let us hear her own account of the matter. A few weeks after reaching home, she wrote me as fol- lows : — “ 21 st Avgust 1823. “ It is now about a month since I left Edinburgh, and, as you wished to know how I came on, I now take the liberty of writing to you, and with the greatest pleasure have to inform you, that I am as well, and walking as stoutly as ever I did in my life. We left Edinburgh in the morning by the six o’clock coach, and got home in the after- noon to tea, (60 miles,) without feeling in the slightest fatigued, when, only three weeks previous, I was quite worn out by riding six miles. My acquaintances were as much astonished at my appearance among them again, walking zoith perfect ease, as if I had risen from the dead : They had condemned me to perpetual lameness. The medical men here, all wish you as high as Hainan. V oil have put their