I love this story, mainly because we feel that everything we know is new. Yet, as with most things that we experience today, there have been many, many who experienced these things long before we were born.
This is the experience of Doctor Mahlon Locke, AKA, the ‘Toe Twister’. Born in 1880, Locke went onto study medicine at the Queen’s University in Kingston. He later took a post-graduate place in Scotland. It was in Scotland that he would learn some unique bone setting techniques that would eventually have 1000 people queuing up to see him every sing day.
A Phenomenon
Of course, when he first left Scotland to return to America, he set up as a family doctor for over two decades. During this time, he also practiced his special learnings with feet on his patients. As he became more popular for his skills in manipulating the feet to heal the wound, he became known as the ‘Foot Doctor’.
““After five treatments, I came away with my insteps arched like a cat’s back and I now have the aristocratic feet of a duchess.”
Rex Ellington Beach
Then came Rex Ellington Beach. In 1932 Rex came to Locke to experience his toe twisting charms. As a writer, he went on to rave about his experience in Cosmopolitan, and this is when everything changed.
Creative approach to every project
Following the release of the article, people would travel from all over North America to see him, and even as far as Europe and South America. At the height of his fame, the Doctor was reported to treat up to 2,000 people in a day. He set up in a swivelling chair with lines of patients radiating outwards around him, and would turn and treat all day long, with treatments lasting around 20-30 seconds. Visitors would wait for hours in the sun or snow for a moment with Doctor Locke.
While the media celebrated him, American and Canadian doctors were wary of him, though no charges were ever brought against Doctor Locke. Something about him and his “healing hands” inspired people to keep coming until the doctor’s death in 1942.
