Report as to the practice of medicine and surgery by unqualified persons in the United Kingdom.

  • Great Britain. Local Government Board
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report as to the practice of medicine and surgery by unqualified persons in the United Kingdom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    10/92 (page 8)
    One Medical Officer of Health re])orts that a herbalist had been sending medicine to a child in the district, who not until after three weeks of such treatment was discovered to be suffering from scarlet fever. Some herbalists safeguard themselves by giving an indefinite certificate, e.(j.^ The case is of a diphtheritic—or typhoid, &c.— nature. Herbalists in some cases are found giving certificates excusing school attendance. B0NESETTEK8. (a) Extent of Practice. Numerous complaints have been received of the encroachments by bonesetters upon the surgical practice of qualified practitioners. Their practice is to a large extent in districts devoted to mining industries, especially in the North of England. They have a very great vogue in Cumberland, Northumberland and Durham, and do a large amount of work in Lancashire. Many also practise in the Welsh mining districts ; and references to them are also made by Medical Officers of Health in all parts of the country. In one large town in the North of England they are stated to have increased at least 40 per cent, during the last ten years. The increase in their practice is attributed in some cases to the Employers' Liability Act. One Medical Officer of Health is of opinion, however, that they are diminishing as a class, owing to the increased knowledge of ambulance work, and the treatment of most accident cases at the Infirmary. Many of them do not confine their practice to one district, but travel from district to district, advertising their visits. Some are reported to have acquired a big reputation in this class of work, and to be resorted to from all quarters. The men who set up as bonesetters aie drawn largely from the working class population, such as carriers, railway porters, and the like, and in many cases they are illiterate and uneducated. Some have learnt what knowledge they possess from ambulance associations. Bonesetters in some districts enjoy a large amount of public confidence. Some friendly societies are said to accept certificates given by them. The Northumberland and Durham INtiners' Permanent Relief Fund, a very large Friendly Society, of which practically every coal miner in the two Counties is a member, has recently decided to accept certificates from bonesetters in cases of accident as equivalent to certificates of medical practitioners. In Wales, belief in these men is said to be implicit. There is a sti-ongly-rooted idea that l)onesettiiig is a thing apart from a medical man's functions, and it is not unconunon for a medical man to be asked to attend a [)alient who is under a bone-setter's treatment.