FAMOUS BONESETTER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 46, 23 August 1939, Page 13

FAMOUS BONESETTER

METHODS FILMED IN LONDON

Sir Herbert Barker's methods of manipulative surgery are to be handed on to the medical profession which for years refused to recognise his work, says the London "Daily Telegraph." He has completed at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, a film showing his most important manipulative operations in practice. This film will be shown to medical students. In addition, he will give a series of j demonstrations which will pass on to orthopaedic "surgeons and to posterity the technique which has made him famous despite years of opposition. Sir Herbert told a reporter that he will give these demonstrations as often as he can, until he is satisfied that his methods- are being carried out to his satisfaction. Referring to the fact that the medical staffs at St. Thomas's had agreed unanimously to accept his offer to give the demonstrations, Sir Herbert said: "I have worked all my life for this achievement, and the sense of relief and satisfaction is simply overwhelming. I knew acknowledgment would come, but I feared it might come when I was in my grave. Many pioneers have been recognised only after their death, and I began to think that might be my unfortunate lot also. "The whole of my technique may now be handed on from generation to generation. That is all I have worked for, and my work has been my life. My methods will now be available to every surgeon in every country in the' world and to every suffering person. "The tragedy is that ray o—sr was not accepted many years ago. Repeatedly I offered under any terms or conditions to demonstrate, my work so that it could be considered and judged. I was always met with refusals. "Now that my work has been recognised 1 can look back on the old days with satisfaction. It was an exhausting —almost a heart-breaking fight. We have given tremendously hard blows on either side. Fortunately I have always had the forensic spirit of ray father, who was a famous lawyer, and I was able to give as good as I got." One part of the film which Sir Herbert has made shows manipulative operations for "tennis elbow" and recurrent dislocation of. the shoulder joint. "Other parts," he said, "show work on affections of the iow spine, which are often very difficult to r cure, and i what is known as :pes planus'. or flat foot. . "The film also shows operations for hip affections and knee cartilage dislocations; in fact, it covers practically the whole field of the manipulative section of orthopaedic surgery." Sir Herbert said that despite the fact that he has been practising for forty years he can still sprint 100 yards in "respectable time," and can walk 15 to 20 miles in a day.