After a fall in his rest room, Mohammad Ayub discovered himself in a prolonged line for a second go to to a bonesetter for remedy for his shoulder.
The 49-year-old chemistry instructor in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, had a great expertise with a bonesetter as a result of he took his son to the well-known Mohammad Ramzan Bangi and was cured, which is why he returned to the identical individual for his injured shoulder.
Bangi, 58, sits on the nook of a well-known Sufi shrine within the coronary heart of Srinagar, clutching a bag containing bandages, plasters, medical tape rolls, cotton and a small knife.
In Muslim-majority Kashmir, bonesetters are believed to have religious therapeutic powers that transcend fashionable medication.
The bonesetters can assess the damage utilizing a bone-related advantageous artwork realized from their ancestors. First, they place their thumb on the damaged bones and press, evaluating the fracture’s depth or harm solely by way of contact.
“It is a God-given ability for us, and by His grace alone, we are able to cure many patients who come to us,” Bangi, who was wearing a standard winter cloak recognized domestically as a “pheran,” advised Anadolu Agency (AA).
He nodded to the subsequent affected person, Ayub, who had a shoulder damage. Bangi pressed his shoulder together with his thumb and requested him if it nonetheless harm, Ayub gestured, and the bonesetter slicked a medical tape roll with cotton.
“I feel much relieved from the pain, and now I am able to move my shoulder,” Ayub advised AA with a visual smile on his face after 10 minutes of remedy. “I didn’t go to a hospital and came here, and by the grace of God, it was a good decision,” he added.
Many individuals in Kashmir, like Ayub, choose to go to a bonesetter for bone remedies moderately than an orthopedic surgeon or a basic doctor.
Bangi is likely one of the bonesetters in Srinagar. Still, he’s extra well-known as a result of he selected his father’s career, who was sitting on the identical Naqshband Sahab shrine, which was constructed within the seventeenth century by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and named after the well-known Bukhara mystic, Khawaja Syed Bahauddin Naqshband, the founding father of a Sufi order.
He has been sitting in the identical nook of the shrine the place his father used to sit down and treating individuals with bone issues for the previous 32 years.
Known as “watangor” in an area language, or the bonesetters, this group of Indigenous individuals within the Kashmir area declare to remedy completely different orthopedic accidents based mostly on religious perception.
“I was a young boy when I used to accompany my father to this shrine,” Bangi mentioned, recalling a big crowd ready for his father to deal with them.
His father, Ghulam Mohammad Bangi, was a standard bonesetter for almost 50 years and belonged to a household of bonesetters – a novel standard follow in Kashmir that dates again a long time earlier than the arrival of recent science.
“I think I would have been 17 years old when I started this practice as a profession after learning it from my father,” Bangi mentioned, including that he has devoted his complete life to this follow since 1981 and receives tons of of sufferers day by day looking for remedy from him.
He defined how years of follow and perception had enabled him to heal individuals’s damaged arms, shoulders, toes, or every other bone with none formal medical coaching or scientific information.
Health consultants discard
However, medical practitioners within the area usually say they obtained sufferers with extra problems after being handled by the bonesetters.
Dr. Naseer Ahmad Mir, a senior orthopedic surgeon, advised AA that he had obtained many instances the place sufferers had been in a worse state of well being after being handled by these conventional bonesetters.
“In some cases, we had to cut down limbs and operate on patients for dislocated bones and joints because bonesetters don’t understand anatomy,” Mir mentioned.
The Kashmir area is dependent upon a single healthcare facility, the Government Hospital for Bone and Joint, Barzulla, in Srinagar, for bone and joint points.
He defined that utilizing bandages and adhesive tape rolls by bonesetters on fractured bones causes extra harm as a result of it blocks blood vessels, ensuing within the loss of life of physique tissue.
“Many times, bacterial infections and blisters develop due to the continuous use of such bandages,” he cautioned.
But Bangi, alternatively, disagreed, claiming that if this had been the case, they’d not have obtained any sufferers.
There are some individuals, he asserted, who don’t adhere to this conventional follow and as a substitute deal with individuals with out regard for follow or perception.
“We have dedicated our lives to this practice, and experience teaches you a lot,” the bonesetter mentioned whereas treating a affected person.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
