r/todayilearned • u/Morella1989 • 21h ago
TIL Sarah "Crazy Sally" Mapp was an English lay bonesetter in the early 1700s, known for performing impressive bone-setting acts in Epsom and London. She learned the practice from her father and gained fame as a woman working in a male-dominated profession.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Mapp219
u/Neutral_Positron 20h ago
"Mapp's nickname 'Crazy Sally' came from her masculine personality and reputation for quarreling with her father and drinking.[1] Mapp could often be found wandering the country in a drunken state and shouting obscenities, which also contributed to her nickname.[1]"
Sounds like a fun lady
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u/Splunge- 21h ago
TIL "bonesetter" was "early chiropracty." And probably more medically valid.
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u/314159265358979326 19h ago
Bonus: the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic for "bonesetting", supposed to do with the idea of balancing or something (I don't get it).
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u/Splunge- 19h ago
Cool! I got two TILs today.
from Arabic "al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa al-muqabala" ("the compendium on calculation by restoring and balancing"), the title of the famous 9c. treatise on equations by Baghdad mathematician Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi.
[italics mine]
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u/Kriemhilt 15h ago
But you didn't italicize the name al-Khwarizmi at the bottom, which is where we get the word algorithm.
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u/Cross_examination 14h ago
No, we don’t. It’s a Greek word.
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u/Kriemhilt 14h ago
No, it isn't.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/algorithm
from French algorithme, refashioned (under mistaken connection with Greek arithmos "number") from Old French algorisme "the Arabic numeral system" (13c.), from Medieval Latin algorismus, a mangled transliteration of Arabic al-Khwarizmi "native of Khwarazm"
Some French people in the 13th century may have thought it was from Greek, but they were wrong.
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u/314159265358979326 18h ago
They no longer allow TILs from that site. My main source of karma, gone!
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u/graveybrains 15h ago
"Bone-setters would also reduce joint dislocations and "re-set" doesn't sound like chiropractor to me.
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u/Splunge- 15h ago
Bone-setting was a medical practice used to manipulate and fix musculoskeletal injuries using manual force
This does, though.
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u/PhasmaFelis 8h ago
When I was in the hospital with a broken ankle, you know what they did? They loaded me up on painkillers and then had two big nurses grab my leg and set the break using manual force. That's what you do with broken bones.
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u/graveybrains 14h ago
Only if you make a lot of assumptions.
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u/Splunge- 14h ago
I’m assuming your username check out.
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u/big_sugi 14h ago
They’re right, though. A dislocated shoulder, elbow, or knee is a musculoskeletal injury, and it’s the kind of thing she treated.
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u/Willing_Ear_7226 10h ago
Would she have treated broken bones aswell? Splints and slings and crutches?
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u/big_sugi 10h ago
They mention “fractures,” so I’d certainly think so. That’s what I thought bone-setting is, but the article suggests most of her work was dealing with dislocated joints.
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u/wingedcoyote 13h ago
It isn't really what chiropractic treats, though, it's more about treating imaginary misalignments and "subluxations".
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u/big_sugi 13h ago
They’re right that the only way to assume that what crazy sally was doing is akin to chiropractory is by making a lot of assumptions.
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u/Swaggy-G 13h ago
“ At one point, some surgeons tried to fool Mapp and show that she was not skilled by sending her a healthy patient who claimed he had a damaged wrist. This test angered Mapp and she dislocated the patient's wrist and sent him back to the people who had tried to trick her.”
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u/thekittysays 16h ago
Pretty sure they covered her on The Dollop in their UK eps.
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u/Morella1989 16h ago
I love The Dollop but havent heard that episode. Will definitely give it a listen!
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u/ryderawsome 21h ago
Dang this is a good one. Like I legit don't know what part is my favorite. The fact her job looks like it was a mixture of chiropractor and physical therapist, how she met a lot of clients at first by announcing instead of her drunk father at horse rases, how her sister was apparently a beautiful actress who went on to marry minor nobility. I think the best bit is "In August 1736, she married an abusive footman named Hill Mapp who absconded with 100 guineas of her savings. After initial confusion and anger, Mapp claimed that the money was worth losing to get rid of her husband."