LOOSE AT THE JOINTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 60, 1 September 1911, Page 2

LOOSE AT THE JOINTS

New York. June 30. What Dr. Drnry, the night admitting surgeon, and Dr. Betts, the house surgeon of Bellevue Hospital, declared to be the most wonderful muscular control perj haps in the world, appeared at the hosj pital in the person of Ellis Whitman, 22 years old. a graduate of medicine and ' surgery of Heidelberg University. Whitman told Mr. Nugent, the record clerk, that he had fallen and dislocated his left hip, ami wanted to have it reset. He was referred to Dr. Drury, who tried in vain to leset the man's hip in its socket, and called in Dr. Jackson, the expert bone-setter of Bellevue. Together the two surgeons tried by main force to reset the hip, but it would not move. Then Dr. Kenny and Dr. Betts were called in. All the surgeons turned their backs to the patient, consulting as to what would be the best thing to do, and when they returned to the patient's side the left hip was back in place and the left hip dislocated. ' Whitman, according to Dr. Belts and Dr. Drury, said he could at will dislocate every bone in his body, and then replace them. The surgeons doubted his statement, and Whitman offered to show them. Then he proceeded to dislocate first one shoulder and then the other, bringing them back in place again unaided. He dislocated and replaced his ankles, his wrists, his knees, and then told the surgeons that he could dislocate the vertrebrae of his spine and of his neck, which he said was very dangerous to do. The surgeons doubted him, and he said he would do it. for them. They advised him not to do it, but he insisted. When he disloented the vertrebrae of his spine he looked a< if he had a pronounced case of curvature of the spine. Dr. Betts and Dr. Drury asked the man how he was able to accomplish these feats, and he said that he. did them by muscular motion alone. He said emphatically that he was not a mere contortionist. Whitman said that his purpose in doing these ..things was to aid surgery in a quick and sure method of replacing dislocations.