The next time you break a bone, dislocate a joint, swallow something that stops halfway down, or eat something which reaches your stomach and threatens to do you in, the work of a mechanically-minded Missouri surgeon and medical teacher might either save your life or ease your pain. The mechanic/medicine man was Doctor John Thompson Hodgen, and we are still benefiting from his work although he’s been dead since 1882.

AOWM January 29, 2005