Before the formality of training and licensing medical doctors, many of the services they performed were done by tradesmen, such as barbers performing surgery and midwives delivering babies. Another of these specialties was setting broken and dislocated bones. In 18th-century England, the most famous bonesetter was Crazy Sally, who knew how to promote herself.
Thus was the life of Sarah “Crazy Sally” Mapp, a remarkable woman who was known for her acid tongue and for her ability to shove bones back into place. Before the rise of contemporary fields such as orthopedics, the practice of bonesetting was common, and typically involved strong but formally untrained tradesmen who would reset broken, slipped, or dislocated bones and joints using brute force. The skill was often, as in Mapp’s case, passed down among family members. Her father, John Wallin, shared his bonesetting skills with his daughter, allowing her to fill in when he wasn’t available. Eventually her skills surpassed even her father’s.
Known for her temper and brash demeanor (as well as her drinking), Sally often got into fights with her father as she got older. According to a short account of her life in the 1824 book The Cabinet of Curiosities: Or, Wonders of the World Displayed, it was after one such row that she struck out on her own, taking the skills she’d learned and starting her own traveling practice. Leaning into her reputation for bombastic behavior, she operated under the name “Cracked Sally—the One and Only Bone-setter.”
Read about the exceptional life of famous bonesetter Sarah Mapp at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Wellcome Images)