Bonesetter

Sir Herbert Atkinson Barker, whose name bonesetters use as incantation against the curses of "regular" doctors, reached Manhattan last week from Kingston, Jamaica. Yet few on the pier knew him to be the man who for 40 years has been unlimbering stiff knees, setting dislocated joints, curing flat feet; whom Great Britain knighted for his orthopedic work on War wrecks; for whom Dr. F. W. Axham lost professional caste and died last year scorned by doctors (TIME, April 19, 1926) ; who wrote the article on "Mani-pulative Surgery" in the newest version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Although "regular" medical men scorn "Manipulative Surgeon" Barker's methods for not being based on the surgical science that they know, there can be no minimizing of his successes. Recently, while disporting himself in the waters of the Gulf of Genoa (at Alassio where he now lives in modest dalliance), he struck his head against bottom. When he reached surface (he told his Manhattan greeters last week), his head hurt; his neck was stiff; he could not turn his head. Something was out of joint. He wrapped his powerful fingers about his neck, manipulated the bones, wrenched. There was an "audible crack" and he was "fit as ever."

The purpose of his visit to the U. S. he explained, was to perform a manipulative operation on "a prominent man ... as prominent as Coolidge."

And who "as prominent as Coolidge" was ill? became the question. Did William Howard Taft have a dislocated shoulder, Charles Evans Hughes a stiff knee, Alfred Emanuel Smith a locked jaw, Will H. Hays flat feet? Questioning became a game; the game became boresome.