Very endearing story
The author of this book collected the words of an eighty-five-year-old Breton bonesetter. “We talked sometimes for hours, a hundred and eighty hours of recordings. » While the book was ready for printing, this gentleman preferred that his name not appear in his biography. He fears that he will be criticized for having written about his profession, a profession that he loved so much and then, above all, that they will not leave him in peace even though he wants nothing else. than tending to your garden, playing cards and spending time with your friends.
He was born into a very poor family, to a bone-setter father and brother. Very early on, he was placed in a butchery where he was exploited more than shamefully. He manages to buy a butcher’s shop and at the same time he works as a bonesetter. Little by little, he becomes richer and becomes someone whom people come to consult from far, far away. Throughout the reading, this gentleman tells us about some of the care he gave to suffering people who had lost all hope of recovery. Joining disarticulated bones, displaced vertebrae, massages operating on stiffened muscles, these are the main principles of this often criticized science. Several doctors will ask, more or less humbly, for his advice.
A very endearing story!
Excerpts:
– I was trained with the idea that I am worthless. This obedience comes to us from school: obeying, accepting to be hit, humiliated. We are never taught the idea of a possible fraternity. Supremacy of the master over the child, of the boss over the worker: education does not give us the keys to thinking for ourselves.
– Bone-setter, “caterer”, healer and butcher, I am everything at the same time. I am a bonesetter from father and mother to son, an heir of the people who preceded me and who saved, with their knowledge, the unfortunate and the injured. When I graduate, I’m going to settle down and have a storefront. I am selling my butcher shop and my animals.
– I treat the spine and limbs with heat, after massaging them, but also I wash my hands after each treatment. I perceive each person’s skin better this way, I leave with a new feeling. Basically, what is my job? I think that there is a basis for reparation at the social level, if we start from the principle that everything is patched together, even the most critical tragedies.
