Patient at Breakfast

Rich Egyptians often sat a skeleton at their feasts as a reminder of the nearness of Death, the promise of Resurrection.

John Hunter (1728-93), great English surgeon, once sat a skeleton beside his sole pupil at a lecture so that "when I address you as gentlemen, I do not err."

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), great English philosopher-economist, arranged for his skeleton to attend the centennial celebration of his death (TIME, June 20, 1932). When not at commemorative gatherings, the Bentham skeleton sits in a wooden box at the University of London, dressed in Bentham's own clothes. The Bentham skull, fleshed out with tinted wax and hair, lies on the floor of the box between the Bentham foot bones.

Last week in Chicago's Palmer House, nine men and women calling themselves naprapaths, without the wit of Hunter or Bentham, without the reverence of the Egyptians, made shocking news by having a skeleton as honor guest at breakfast.

The bones, bolstered up in a chair on a pair of thick Chicago telephone books, were all that was left of one J. M. McAdou of Florida, late patient of Oakley Smith, 53. founder of the Chicago College of Naprapathy. Patient McAdou died last year.

At last week's breakfast "Dr." Smith, a slick-scalped man who wears gold-rimmed glasses and winged collars, caressed the skull of his deceased patient, placed a cigaret between its spring-hung jaws, clacked its bare hands upon the table. In final flourish the nine naprapaths signed a scroll listing themselves as members of a Post-Mortem Club and willing their bones thereto. A notary public authenticated the-- document for what it was worth.

Still avid for publicity, naprapaths proceeded to the Century of Progress for Sally Rand, fan dancer. Giving her no time to doff her flat white hat, Naprapath Smith had her shrug off the top of her dress. He found she wore no slip, no brassiere. In search for "ligatights" he applied a gadget called a "multitherm" to her back, found none.

There was not a regular doctor in Chicago, in Illinois or in the U. S. last week who had anything but supreme contempt for the medical theories of "Dr." Oakley Smith and his 200 followers who helped him celebrate the 25th anniversary of Naprapathy. "Dr." Smith was a kind of chiropractor when he conceived these theories and invented the name "Naprapathy" from the Czech naprava ("correction") and the Greek pathos ("suffering"). Naprapaths claim that all disease is due to shrunken ligaments ("ligatights") pressing upon nerves. The naprapath tries to ease the pressure by manipulating the "ligatights," somewhat after the fashion of the chiropractor.

Once, but no longer, naprapaths were permitted to practice in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, California, Oregon. Last year when Founder Smith tried to get a license for a disciple to practice in Iowa he admitted: "No State at the present time issues licenses to naprapaths except Kentucky. . . . This is not only a method of treatment of human ailments. I have cured horses."

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