Puttur Kattu: India’s Best-Known Bonesetting Tradition

By Eswar Kumar · 4 August 2026

If you ask someone in Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu to name a bonesetting tradition, the answer is likely to be Puttur. The practice known as Puttur kattu has been carried by one family in a village near Puttur town since the 1880s, has been the subject of peer-reviewed academic study, and has become well enough known across South India that clinics in other cities trade on the name.

This article is history and cultural background. It is not a medical claim, an endorsement, or a recommendation to seek any particular treatment. Where the historical record is thin or contradicts itself — and it does, in one significant place — this article says so rather than smoothing it over.

What does “Puttur Kattu” mean?

Kattu means bandage. Puttur is a town in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, in South India. Put together, “Puttur kattu” is simply “the Puttur bandage” — a name that describes the tradition’s most visible feature, the dressed and splinted limb, rather than any theory behind it.

The practice is more precisely located than the name suggests. The 2011 study published in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine records that “Puttur Kattu, the art of setting of fractures and dislocations, is being practiced hereditarily in Rachapalem village near Puttur in the state of Andhra Pradesh since 1881.” Rachapalem — also called Eswarapuram — is described as about two kilometres from Puttur town.

You will encounter variant spellings online, including puthur kattu and pettu kattu. Transliteration from Telugu and Tamil is inconsistent. The scholarly literature uses “Puttur kattu,” and that is the term used here.

The origins: a lineage traced to 1881

Here the record needs handling with care, because the single most-cited source contradicts itself.

The abstract of the 2011 study states that Puttur kattu was “invented accidentally by K. Kesava Raju in 1881.” Its own history section names a different person: “The treatment was accidentally discovered by the forefather of the Raju clan of Puttur, named Kadallam Gopal Raju, in the year 1881.” Both names appear in the same peer-reviewed paper. Secondary sources have generally copied the abstract, which is why “K. Kesava Raju” circulates more widely — but that is repetition, not corroboration.

What the sources agree on is the year, 1881; the place, Rachapalem village near Puttur; and the family, the Raju clan. The founder’s name should be treated as unsettled until someone consults a primary record.

The origin story itself is family oral history recorded by researchers, not independently verified event history, and it reads like one. According to the paper, the founder was hunting when he came across a herb he believed had healing properties. He brought an injured rabbit back from the forest and applied it, then made a paste and applied it again. He experimented over several years on chickens, calves and sheep before turning to the classical Ayurvedic text the Sushruta Samhita and deciding to treat people.

The same account states that during the First World War his services were used by the British government to treat wounded soldiers and civilians, and that he practised for twenty years seeing ten to fifteen patients a day. These specifics are the family’s own account as recorded in 2011 — the tradition’s history of itself, which is a real and valuable thing, and not documented fact.

How the tradition was passed down

The transmission is the best-attested part of the story, and the part that most defines what Indian bonesetting is.

The founder had no children of his own. According to the published account, he passed the knowledge of the herb to his brother’s and sister’s sons, and the lineage then split into two branches. His brother’s grandson, Dr K. Gopal Raju — described in the paper as an allopathic doctor — founded a small hospital. His sister’s son, Suprapanaju Subba Raju, a revenue officer under the British administration, “laid the foundation stone of a big bone setting hospital in 1950.” The 2011 paper records that the fourth generation of the family was then practising.

Two things are worth noticing. This is not classroom transmission: nobody in the line was trained by examination, and the knowledge moved along kinship lines rather than through an institution. But it was never sealed off from modern medicine either — one branch was founded by a qualified allopathic doctor. The neat opposition between “traditional” and “modern” that both admirers and critics assume does not hold up well in the actual history.

What researchers have documented

The 2011 paper by Ashok Kumar Panda and Suvendu Rout is the main academic source on Puttur kattu, and it is worth being precise about what it is: a prospective observational study of the practice — its diagnostic methods, materials, plants and procedures — together with a survey of patients about why they came. It is a description of a practice and of patient attitudes. It is not a controlled trial, and it does not establish that the treatment works. Studied is not the same as proven, and neither is the same as endorsed.

What the researchers recorded:

The technique. Practitioners assess by hand. The paper’s description is blunt: “They feel the arm or leg for dislocated joint or fracture. In some cases, despite the protests from the patients, they twist, pull and poke the arm or leg to locate the exact dislocation or fracture.” Gauze is dipped in a herbal paste and tied around the injured area; the limb is immobilised with pieces of bamboo and bandaged; a sling is applied for upper-limb injuries. The patient is told to apply sesame oil daily and to return in about fifteen days, when a second dressing — the paste mixed with egg white and turmeric — is applied and removed at home a month later. The paper notes practitioners “take only 5–10 minutes for completion of all fracture and dislocation cases.”

The plant. The herb is recorded as kasamarda — Latin Cassia occidentalis, family Caesalpiniaceae; Kasinda in Telugu, Ponnavirai or Nattam takarai in Tamil. It is gathered locally.

Why patients came. Of those surveyed, 54% came on the advice of former patients. 44% cited fear of pain, heavy plaster of Paris casts, prolonged immobilisation, surgery or amputation. 23% had voluntarily discharged themselves from a modern hospital to go to Puttur.

Imaging. This is the finding that matters most for a reader deciding anything. The study records that patients bring X-rays but “X-rays are given less importance,” and that there is no X-ray unit on the campus.

Outcomes, as reported. The paper states that 71% of followed cases were satisfied, with loss of joint movement in one case (2%), and no reported gangrene or Volkmann’s ischaemic contracture in the sample. That is a satisfaction figure from a self-selected group followed by the researchers, not an efficacy result.

For contrast, a 2020 retrospective study of 362 patients who reached an Indian tertiary hospital after treatment by traditional bone setters — by definition the cases that went wrong — recorded malunion in 36.74%, nonunion in 19.06%, joint stiffness in 16.02%, compartment syndrome in 5.80% and gangrene in 2.48%. Neither set of figures describes the practice as a whole. Together they show why a fracture belongs in front of a clinician with imaging.

Puttur Kattu today

The tradition is still working. The 2011 study reported the family’s two hospitals in Rachapalem — with outpatient and inpatient facilities — drawing 200–300 patients a day, in a village of around 170 households of the Kshatriya community. It also reported that the name was known well beyond Andhra Pradesh, in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and further north.

One consequence of that reputation is worth flagging plainly: “Puttur kattu” now appears on the signage of clinics across India that have no connection to the Rachapalem family. The name travels more easily than the lineage does, and nothing in the academic record vouches for any particular clinic using it.

These figures are from 2011 and are a snapshot of that time, not current numbers. No equivalent follow-up study has been published since.

Where Puttur fits among India’s bonesetting traditions

Puttur is the best documented Indian bonesetting lineage, not the only one and not necessarily the largest. Traditional bonesetters — vaidyas, or haad vaidyas in the north — work across the subcontinent with their own regional techniques, materials and family lines, most never written about.

How many is genuinely unclear. The 2011 Puttur paper mentions “nearly 6000 traditional bone setting Vaidyas” in India; a 2022 case series in the Kansas Journal of Medicine estimates “approximately 60,000,” and states they treat around 60% of bone-related trauma. Those figures differ by more than an order of magnitude, and nobody has counted.

Puttur’s prominence is partly a matter of documentation: it happened to be studied. For the wider picture, see What Is Indian Bonesetting? A Complete Beginner’s Guide.

When to see a doctor

Historical significance is not medical endorsement, and a tradition being 140 years old says nothing about whether it is the right thing for your injury. This article is heritage education.

Seek qualified medical care immediately for:

  • Suspected fractures or breaks — visible deformity, inability to bear weight, a crack or snap heard at the time of injury, severe pain over a bone.
  • Suspected or visible dislocations — a joint that is locked, misshapen or immovable.
  • Any acute trauma — road accidents, falls from height, crush injuries, blows to the head, neck or spine.
  • Numbness, tingling, weakness or loss of function in a limb.
  • A limb that is cold, pale, blue or pulseless, or escalating pain — possible compartment syndrome or vascular compromise; both are surgical emergencies.
  • Open wounds, bone visible through skin, fever or spreading redness — infection risk.
  • Loss of bladder or bowel control, or severe progressive back pain — a spinal emergency.

Fractures and dislocations need imaging and a clinician. The published account of the Puttur clinics themselves notes there is no X-ray unit on site and that X-rays are given less importance — a hands-on assessment, however experienced, cannot tell you what a radiograph can.

Learn the tradition’s techniques

Indian Bonesetting — an introductory online course with Eswar Kumar. If reading the history has made you want to see the work rather than read about it, the course is video lessons plus a PDF theory guide, taught by someone who has practised and taught this tradition in India, Brazil and Sweden. It is practical instruction in a living tradition, honestly framed: no certificate is issued, and completing it does not license or qualify anyone to practise on other people — that requires supervised in-person training and compliance with local law. Start with the free sample lesson.

Watch the free sample lesson → · See what’s in the course →

Frequently asked questions

What does “Puttur kattu” actually mean?
“Kattu” means bandage, and Puttur is a town in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. The name refers to the bandaging-and-splinting method practised hereditarily in Rachapalem village near Puttur, documented as running since 1881.

Who founded the Puttur kattu tradition?
A member of the Raju family of Rachapalem, in 1881 — but the name is not settled. The main academic source calls him “K. Kesava Raju” in its abstract and “Kadallam Gopal Raju” in its history section. Most online repetitions follow the abstract. Until someone checks a primary record, either name should carry that caveat.

Is Puttur kattu proven to work?
No study has established that. The 2011 paper is an observational description plus a patient survey; its 71% satisfaction figure comes from a self-selected group and is not an efficacy result. There is no controlled trial of Puttur kattu. Separately, hospital-based studies of patients presenting after traditional bonesetting document serious complications.

Is “pettu kattu” the same thing?
It appears in searches as a variant of the same term, but no scholarly source defines it distinctly. Transliteration from Telugu and Tamil is inconsistent, and spellings such as “puthur kattu” circulate for the same tradition. The academic literature uses “Puttur kattu.”

Sources

This article is educational and is not medical advice. Bonesetting techniques should only be practised after supervised, in-person training and in line with the laws where you live.