The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-08-31
Strengthening Hunchbacks-A Triumph
'14i' 7" Of Surgical Science.

Hunchbacks-A Triumph
'34i'. 10 Of Surgical Science.
"A -il IoI -iif-- tee 81. sae.a
CORRESPONDENCE of the Cincinnati Enquirer
DIR. Sayre, of New York, is at the
West End Hotel, Long Branch, with his
family. He is the most daring and sug-
gestive surgeon in America. Professor,
lecturer, author, man of the world, bon
rivGrt, and head of a familyo of sons who
are growing up in his science. He is
out riding on horseback in the park or
along the beach at Z O'Clock a. m, and
is still in the early noon Of life. The
last performance of Sayre's is so extra
ordinary that it requires personal wit
ness to have faith in it. He straightens
Potts disease, or angular curvature of
the spine, in a very few minutes, virtu-
ally annihilating thatvariety of the race
of .hunchbacks. This cure, of course,
is not feasible in old and settled cases
where the bones themselves have be-
come set and hardened to the line of
deformity, but it has proven efficient
with grown-up people and well-nigh
certain with children. There is cor
net-player in Gilmore's band who but
recently walked like terrapin, his bel
ly nearly on the ground. He was sus-
pended by the chin and arm-pits by DR..
Sayre. and incased in "plaster-of-
Paris socket" and now blows his horn
with redundant lungs, an object of in
terest to his species, particularly to ply
sicians.
The manner of this cure is, like all
signal discoveries, so simple that it ex-
cites smile for the worlds long OBJ
tusenesS to the art. The hunchback is
hanged up by an apparatus which
raises the chin, throws the head back
slightly, and straps under the armpits,
throwing the body in its natural gravi-
ty, relieving the respiratory organs and
the heart, and, without pain or exer-
ton, Strengthening the spine. So far
from being distressed at the unwonted
relation of the muscles, cartilages and
organs, the patient exclaims with de-
light upon the relief he feels. While
suspended and the spine fully returned
to the perpendicular, bucket of plas-
ter is brought in, the basis of which is
of a strong texture and the covering of
wet plaster-of-Paris. One by one these
bandages are wrapped around thechest
and back, and the plaster is pressed
into every recess and wrinkle of the
trunk, where it sets and hardens, and
an outer integument or shell is formed
around the patient, so close and yet so
light and so well identified with the
body that it fits easily like kid glove,
yet binds the trunk like corset. This
or successive plasters is kept upon the
subject for months, or, according to
the viciousness of the case, until the
spine has resumed its normal grace and
consistency, and becomes firm, like a
crooked tree bandaged into shape. Thus
the same plaster in which the sculptor
has for ages made forms of beauty con-
tanned the medicinal suggestion for
more human models. Apelles and
Donatelli had cast the plaster into
dumb forms, at which poor, envious
hunchbacks looked with humiliation,
and passed along for generations
ashamed and unlOved. The surgeon
came at last and touched the plaster,
and felt its virtues for q humaner art :;
and the statues he restored incased the
grateful hearts of men and women.
One hundred and eighty cases have
been treated by DR.. Sayre. In a ma
jOrity of cases they have been children,
brought into the world by woman's
pain to afflict the loving eye and heart
yet more as they matured and crept
along toward manhood only half-fitted
for the manual labor of life, passed by
maidens and Knocked by men. De-
formity of mind, brOoding and resent
ment often attended the abasement of
the body as the hunchbacks of the
drama are made to relate. Richard of
Gloster and the crook-back of Rigoletto
ascribed their vices to their treatment
at the hands of nature. In the cases of
deformed children, yet innocent and
but partly aware of their melancholy
future, the anxiety of mother is con-
slant. Under Sayre's treatment they
rise from the ground and laugh and
leap.
The ethics of legitimate science
which often seems severe in the rigid
refusal of its practitioners to consult with
new and experimental schools of med
icine, happens in such cases as this to
give to mankind, free and promptly, its
best discoveries. Nothing is patented
which the true physician finds out. A
quack is not merely an impostor-he
can also be defined as one who keeps a
secret of truth or an application and
peddles it out to the suffering. The
essence of quackdOm is the mercenary
motive. The glory of science is its
philanthropy. As professor Of surgery
DR.. Sayre Immediately published his
treatment of Potts disease of the spine,
supposed hitherto to be incurable, in
the medical journals. But when the
American Medical Association met a
few weeks ago in Philadelphia, SO ignO-
rant were the mass of the members of
Sayre's method that he had to commu-
nicate it orally, with subjects of the dis
ease at hand. Among these was a
child from Newmarket, eastern shore
of Maryland, upon whom a country
doctor had operated with imperfect sue
cess from reading Sayre's recent book,
where the treatment was described.
The child was brought before the med
icaI association, suspended, straight
encd and sent away changed from a
cripple to a cupid. At the close of the
illustration an old physician, who had
made speech declaring that the treat
ment marked an ers in medical science,
whispered to DR.. Sayre, with tears in
his eyes: "God bless you! l have a
child ten years old, my only one, who
has Potts disease. am aching to get
home and apply your system"