One who sets dislocated or broken bones; a surgeon; now applied spec. to one who makes a distinct calling of treating fractures, without being a certified surgeon.
c. 1470. Play Sacram., 539. He ys allso a boone setter.
c. 1510. Barclay, Mirr. Good Mann. (1570), D vj. A bone setter he hyreth.
1622. Peacham, Compl. Gentl., xi. (1634), 99. Accounted the best Bone-setter in the Country.
1706. Hearne, Rem. & Coll. (1885), I. 226. An Eminent Bone-setter and a good Surgeon.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 24 Sept., 5/1. A bone-setter is a sort of amateur surgeon, who has learnt the art of curing dislocations empirically, and who practises that particular branch of surgery in an informal, irregular manner…. Of late … the art of the bone-setter has risen into some repute with the regular profession.
So Bone-setting vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Algebra, bone setting.
1676. Wiseman, Surg. Treat., VI. ii. 445 (J.). A fractured Leg set in the Country by one pretending to Bone-setting.
1808. Bentham, Sc. Reform, 50. The bone setting or bone breaking hundred-mile road.
