Philosophy of Osteopathy by Andrew Taylor Still (android e book reader .TXT) 📕

I asked Dr. J. M. Neal, of Edinburg, Scotland, for some information that I needed badly. He was a medical doctor of five years training, a man of much mental ability, who would give his opinions freely and to the point. I have been told by one or more Scotch M. D.'s that a Dr. John M. Neal, of Edinburg, was hung for murder. He was not hung while with me. The only thing made me doubt him being a Scotchman was he loved whiskey, and I had been told that the Scotch were a sensible people. John M. Neal said that "drugs was the bait of fools"; it was no science, and the system of drugs was only a trade, followed by the doctor for the money that could be obtained by it from the ignorant sick. He believed that nature was a law capable of vindicating its power all over the world.

As this writing is for the information of the student I will continue the history by saying, that in the early days of Osteopathy I sought the opinions of the most learned, such as Dr. Schnebly, Professor of Language and History in the Baker University, Baldwin, Kansas; Dr. Dallas, a very learned M. D. of the Alopathic faith; Dr. F. A. Grove, well-known in Kirksville; J. B. Abbott, Indian agent, and many others of renown. Then back to the tombs of the dead, to better acquaint myself with the systems of medicine and the foundations of truth upon which they stood, if any. I will not worry your patience with a list of the names of authors that have written upon the subject of medicine, as remedial agents. I will use the word that the theologian often uses when asked whom Christ died for, the answer universally is, ALL. All intelligent medical writers say by word or inference that drugs or drugging is a system of blind guess work, and if we should let our opinions be governed by the marble lambs and other emblems of dead babies found in the cemeteries of the world, we would say that John M. Neal was possibly hung for murder, not through design, but through traditional ignorance of the power of nature to cure both old and young, by skillfully adjusting the engines of life so as to bring forth pure and healthy blood, the greatest known germicide, to one capable to reason who has the skill to conduct the vitalizing and protecting fluids to throat, lungs and all parts of the system, and ward off diseases as nature's God has indicated. With this faith and method of reasoning, I began to treat diseases by Osteopathy as an experimenter, and notwithstanding I obtained good results in all cases in diseases of climate and contagions, I hesitated for years to proclaim to the world that there was but little excuse for a master engineer to lose a child in cases of diphtheria, croup, measles, mumps, whooping cough, flux and other forms of summer diseases, peculiar to children. Neither was it necessary for the adult to die with diseases of summer, fall and winter. But at last I took my stand on this rock and my confidence in nature, where I have stood and fought the battles, and taken the enemy's flag in every engagement for the last twenty-five years.

As you contemplate studying this science and have asked to know the necessary studies, I wish to impress it upon your minds that you begin with anatomy, and you end with anatomy, a knowledge of anatomy is all you want or need, as it is all you can use or ever will use in your practice, although you may live one hundred years. You have asked for my opinion as the founder of the science. Yours is an honest question, and God being my judge I will give you just as honest an answer. As I have said, a knowledge of anatomy with its application covers every inch of ground that is necessary to qualify you to become a skillful and successful Osteopath, when you go forth into the world to combat diseases.

I will now define what I mean by anatomy. I speak by comparison and tell you what belongs to the study of anatomy. I will take a chicken whose parts and habits all persons are familiar with to illustrate. The chicken has a head, a neck, a breast, a tail, two legs, two wings, two eyes, two ears, two feet, one gizzard, one crop, one set of bowels, one liver, and one heart. This chicken has a nervous system, a glandular system, a muscular system, a system of lungs and other parts and principles not necessary to speak of in detail. But I want to emphasize, they belong to the chicken, and it would not be a chicken without every part or principle. These must all be present and answer roll call or we do not have a complete chicken. Now I will try and give you the parts of anatomy and the books that pertain to the same. You want some standard author on descriptive anatomy in which you learn the form and places of all bones, the place and uses of ligaments, muscles and all that belong to the soft parts. Then from the descriptive anatomy you are conducted into the dissecting room, in which you receive demonstrations, and are shown all parts through which blood and other fluids are conducted. So far you see you are in anatomy. From the demonstrator you are conducted to another room or branch of anatomy called physiology, a knowledge of which no Osteopath can do without and be a success. In that room you are taught how the blood and other fluids of life are produced, and the channels through which this fluid is conducted to the heart and lungs for purity and other qualifying processes, previous to entering the heart for general circulation to nourish and sustain the whole human body. I want to insist and impress it upon your minds that this is as much a part of anatomy as a wing is a part of a chicken. From this room of anatomy you are conducted to the room of histology, in which the eye is aided by powerful microscopes and made acquainted with the smallest arteries of the human body, which in life are of the greatest known importance, remembering that in the room of histology you are still studying anatomy, and what that machinery can and does execute every day, hour, and minute of life. From the histological room you are conducted to the room of elementary chemistry, in which you learn something of the laws of association of substances, that you can the better understand what has been told you in the physiological room, which is only a branch of anatomy, and intended to show you that nature can and does successfully compound and combine elements for muscles, blood, teeth and bone. From there you are taken to the room of the clinics, where you are first made acquainted with both the normal and abnormal human body, which is only a continuation of the study of anatomy. From there you are taken to the engineer's room (or operator's room) in which you are taught how to observe and detect abnormalities and the effect or effects they may and do produce, and how they effect health and cause that condition known as disease.

Principles to an Osteopath means a perfect plan and specification to build in form a house, an engine, a man, a world, or anything for an object or purpose. To comprehend this engine of life or man which is so constructed with all conveniences for which it was made, it is necessary to constantly keep the plan and specification before the mind, and in the mind, to such a degree that there is no lack of knowledge of the bearings and uses of all parts. After a complete knowledge of all parts with their forms, sizes and places of attachment which should be so thoroughly grounded in the memory that there would be no doubt of the intent of the builder for the use or purpose of the great and small parts, and why they have a part to perform in the workings of the engine. When this part of the specification is thoroughly learned from anatomy or the engineer's guide book, he will then take up the chapter on the division of forces, by which this engine moves and performs the duties for which it was created. In this chapter the mind will be referred to the brain to obtain a knowledge of that organ, where the force starts, how it is conducted to any belt, pully, journal, or division of the whole building. After learning where the force is obtained, and how conveyed from place to place throughout the whole body, he becomes interested and wisely instructed. He sees the various parts of this great system of life when preparing fluids commonly known as blood, passing through a set of tubes both great and small—some so vastly small, as to require the aid of powerful microscopes to see their infinitely small forms, through which the blood and other fluids are conducted by the heart and force of the brain, to construct organs, muscles, membranes and all the things necessary to life and motion, to the parts separately and combined. By this minute acquaintance with the normal body which has been learned in the specification as written in standard authors of anatomy and the dissecting rooms, he is well prepared to be invited into the inspection room to receive comparisons between the normal and abnormal engines, built according to nature's plan and specification, and absolutely perfect. He is called into this room for the purpose of comparing engines that have been strained from being thrown off the track, or run against other bodies with such force as to bend journals, pipes, break or loosen bolts; or otherwise deranged, so as to render it useless until repaired. To repair signifies to readjust from the abnormal condition in which the machinist finds it, to the condition of the normal engines which stand in the shop of repairs. His inspection would commence by first lining up the wheels with straight journals; then he would naturally be conducted to the boiler, steam chest, shafts, and every part that belongs to a completed engine. To know that they are straight and in place as shown upon the plan and described by the specification, he has done all that is required of a master mechanic. Then it goes into the hands of the engineer, who waters, fires and conducts this artificial being on its journey. You as Osteopathic machinists can go no farther than to adjust the abnormal condition, in which you find the afflicted. Nature will do the rest.

The Osteopath reasons if he reasons at all, that order and health are inseparable, and that when order in all parts is found, disease cannot prevail, and if order is complete and disease should be found, there is no use for order. And if order and health are universally one in union, then the doctor cannot usefully, physiologically, or philosophically be guided by any scale of reason,