The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1876-10-12
Strengthening Hunchbacks-A Triumph
Of Surgical Science.

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,
0iv0nt, and head of a family of sons who
are growing up in his science. He is
out riding on horseback in the park or
along the beach at 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 very few minutes, virtu-
ally annihilating that variety 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 a terrapin, his bel
ly nearly on the ground. He was sus-
pended by the chin and arm-pits by DIR.
Sayre and incased in ssplaster-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 a 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 grayi-
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 strong texture and the covering of
wet plaster-of-Paris. One by one these
bandages are wrapped around the chest
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 vet 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 a 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 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 mocked 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-
stant. 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
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