“The ambitious medical student does not usually get far into college work before he aspires to become a surgeon. He sees in the surgical clinics more definite and striking results than are discernible in other branches. Without being able to judge of his own relative fitness or whether he possesses the specialaptitude so essential to success, he decides to become a surgeon. There will always be room for the young surgeon who, fitted by nature for the work, takes the time and opportunity to properly prepare himself. There is more good surgery being done to-day than ever before, and there are more good surgeons being educated to do the work. If, however, the surgeon of the future is to hold the high and honorable position our leaders have held in the past, there must be some standard of qualification established that shall protect the people against incompetency and dishonesty in surgeons.“That there is much that passes under the name of surgery being done by ill-trained, incompetent men, will not be denied. What standard, then, should be established, and what requirement should be made before one should be permitted to do surgery? In his address as chairman of the Section on Surgery and Anatomy of the American Medical Association, at the Portland (1905) meeting, Dr. Maurice H. Richardson deals with this subject in such a forceful, clear-cut way, that I take the liberty to quote him at some length:“‘The burden of the following remarks is that those only should practice surgery who by education in the laboratory, in the dissecting-room, by the bedside, and at the operating-table, are qualified, first, to make reasonably correct deductions from subjective and objective signs; secondly, to give sound advice for or against operations; thirdly, to perform operations skillfully and quickly, and, fourthly, to conduct wisely the after-treatment.“‘The task before me is a serious criticism of what is going on in every community. I do not single out any community or any man. There is in my mind no doubt whatever that surgery is being practiced by those who are incompetent to practice it—by those whose education is imperfect, who lacknatural aptitude, whose environment is such that they never can gain that personal experience which alone will really fit them for what surgery means to-day. They are unable to make correct deductions from histories; to predict probable events; to perform operations skillfully, or to manage after-treatment.“‘All surgeons are liable to error, not only in diagnosis, but in the performance of operations based on diagnosis. Such errors must always be expected and included in the contingencies of the practice of medicine and surgery. Doubtless many of my hearers can recall cases of their own in which useless—or worse than useless—operations have been performed. If, however, serious operations are in the hands of men of large experience, such errors will be reduced to a minimum.“‘Many physicians send patients for diagnosis and opinion as to the advisability of operation without telling the consultant that they themselves are to perform the operation. The diagnosis is made and the operation perhaps recommended, when it appears that the operation is to be in incompetent hands. His advice should be conditional that it be carried out only by the competent. Many operations, like the removal of the vermiform appendix in the period of health, the removal of fibroids which are not seriously offending, the removal of gall-stones that are not causing symptoms, are operations of choice rather than of necessity; they are operations which should never be advised unless they are to be performed by men of the greatest skill. Furthermore, many emergency operations, such as the removal of an inflamed appendix and other operations for lesions which are not necessarily fatal—should be forbidden and the patient left to the chances of spontaneous recovery, if the operation proposed is to be performed by an incompetent.“‘And is not the surgeon, appreciating his own unfitness in spite of years of devotion, in the position to condemn those who lightly take up such burdens without preparation and too often without conscience?“‘In view of these facts, who should perform surgery? How shall the surgeon be best fitted for these grave duties? As a matter of right and wrong, who shall, in the opinion of the medical profession, advise and perform these responsible acts and who shall not? Surgical operations should be performed only by those who are educated for that special purpose.“‘I have no hesitation in saying that the proper fitting of a man for surgical practice requires a much longer experience as a student and assistant than the most exacting schools demand. A man should serve four, five or six years as assistant to an active surgeon. During this period of preparation, as it were, as much time as possible should be given to observing the work of the masters of surgery throughout the world.’“While Dr. Richardson’s ideal may seem almost utopian, there being so wide a difference between the standard he would erect and the one generally established, we must all agree that however impossible of attainment under present conditions, such an ideal is none too high and its future realization not too much to hope for.“While there is being done enough poor surgery that is honest and well intended, there is much being done that is useless, conscienceless, and done for purely commercial ends. This is truly a disagreeable and painful topic and one that I would gladly pass by, did I not feel that its importance demands some word of condemnation coming through such representative surgical organizations as this.“The spirit of graft that has pervaded our ranks, especially here in the West, is doing much to lower the standard and undermine the morals and ethics of the profession. When fee-splitting and the paying of commissions for surgical work began to be heard of something like a decade ago, it seemed so palpably dishonest and wrong that it was believed that it wouldsoon die out, or be at least confined to the few in whom the inherited commercial instinct was so strong that they could not get away from it. But it did not die; on the other hand, it has grown and flourished.“In looking for an explanation for the existence of this evil, I think several factors must be taken into account, among them being certain changes in our social and economic conditions. This is an age of commercialism. We are known to the world as a nation of “dollar chasers,” where nearly everything that should contribute to right living is sacrificed to the Moloch of money. The mad rush for wealth which has characterized the business world, has in a way induced some medical men, whether rightfully or wrongfully, to adopt the same measures in self-protection. The patient or his friends too often insist on measuring the value of our services with a commercial yard-stick, the fee to be paid being the chief consideration. In this way the public must come in for its share of responsibility for existing conditions. So long as there are people who care so little who operates on them, just so long will there be cheap surgeons, cheap in every respect, to supply the demand. The demand for better physicians and surgeons must come in part from those who employ their services.“Another source of the graft evil is the existence of low-grade, irregular and stock-company medical schools. In many of these schools the entrance requirements are not in evidence outside of their catalogues. With no standard of character or ethics, these schools turn out men who have gotten the little learning they possess in the very atmosphere of graft. The existence of these schools seems less excusable when we consider that our leading medical colleges rank with the best in the world and are ample for the needs of all who should enter the profession. Their constant aim is to still further elevate the standard andto admit as students only those who give unmistakable evidence of being morally and intellectually fit to become members of the profession.“Enough men of character, however, are entering the field through these better schools to ensure the upholding of those lofty ideals that have characterized the profession in the past and which are essential to our continued progress. I think, therefore, that we may take a hopeful view of the future. The demand for better prepared physicians will eventually close many avenues that are now open to students, greatly to the benefit of all. With the curtailing of the number of students and a less fierce competition which this will bring, there will be less temptation, less necessity, if you will, on the part of general practitioners to ask for a division of fees. He will come to see that honest dealing on his part with the patient requiring special skill will in the long run be the best policy. He will make a just, open charge for the services he has rendered and not attempt to collect a surreptitious fee through a dishonest surgeon for services he has not rendered and could not render. Then, too, there will be less inducement and less opportunity for incompetent and conscienceless men to disgrace the art of surgery.“The public mind is becoming especially active just at this time in combating graft in all forms, and is ready to aid in its destruction. The intelligent portion of the laity is becoming alive to the patent medicine evil. It is only a question of time when the people will demand that the secular papers which go into our homes shall not contain the vile, disgusting and suggestive quack advertisements that are found to-day. A campaign of reform is being instituted against dishonest politicians, financiers, railroad and insurance magnates, showing that their methods will be no longer tolerated. The moral standards set forprofessional men and men in public life are going to be higher in the future, and with the limelight of public opinion turned on the medical and surgical grafter, the evil will cease to exist. Hand in hand with this reform let us hope that there will come to be established a legal and moral standard of qualification for those who assume to do surgery.“I feel sure that it is the wish of every member of this association to do everything possible to hasten the coming of this day and to aid in the uplifting of the art of surgery. Our individual effort in this direction must lie largely through the influence we exert over those who seek our advice before beginning the study of medicine, and over those who, having entered the work, are to follow in our immediate footsteps. To the young man who seeks our counsel as to the advisability of commencing the study of medicine, it is our duty to make a plain statement of what would be expected of him, of the cost in time and money, and an estimate of what he might reasonably expect as a reward for a life devoted to ceaseless study, toil and responsibility. If, from our knowledge of the character, attainments and qualifications of the young man we feel that at best he could make but a modicum of success in the work, we should endeavor to divert his ambition into some other channel.“We should advise the ‘expectant surgeon’ in his preparation to follow as nearly as possible the line of study suggested by Richardson. Then I would add the advice of Senn, viz: ‘To do general practice for several years, return to laboratory work and surgical anatomy, attend the clinics of different operators, and never cease to be a physician. If this advice is followed there will be less unnecessary operating done in the future than has been the case in the past.’ The young man who enters special work without having had experience as a general practitioner, is seriouslyhandicapped. In this age, when we have so frequently to deal with the so-called border-line cases, it is especially well never to cease being a physician.“We would next have the young man assure himself that he is the possessor of a well-developed, healthy, working ‘surgical conscience.’ No matter how well qualified he may be, his enthusiasm in the earlier years of his work will lead him to do operations that he would refrain from in later life. This will be especially true of malignant disease. He knows that early and thorough radical measures alone hold out hope, and only by repeated unsuccessful efforts will he learn to temper his ambition by the judgment that comes of experience. Pirogoff, the noted surgeon, suffered from a malignant growth. Billroth refused to operate or advise operation. In writing to another surgeon friend he said: ‘I am not the bold operator whom you knew years ago in Zurich. Before deciding on the necessity of an operation, I always propose to myself this question: Would you permit such an operation as you intend performing on your patient to be done on yourself? Years and experience bring in their train a certain degree of hesitancy.’ This, coming from one who in his day was the most brilliant operator in the world, should be remembered by every surgeon, young and old.”
“The ambitious medical student does not usually get far into college work before he aspires to become a surgeon. He sees in the surgical clinics more definite and striking results than are discernible in other branches. Without being able to judge of his own relative fitness or whether he possesses the specialaptitude so essential to success, he decides to become a surgeon. There will always be room for the young surgeon who, fitted by nature for the work, takes the time and opportunity to properly prepare himself. There is more good surgery being done to-day than ever before, and there are more good surgeons being educated to do the work. If, however, the surgeon of the future is to hold the high and honorable position our leaders have held in the past, there must be some standard of qualification established that shall protect the people against incompetency and dishonesty in surgeons.
“That there is much that passes under the name of surgery being done by ill-trained, incompetent men, will not be denied. What standard, then, should be established, and what requirement should be made before one should be permitted to do surgery? In his address as chairman of the Section on Surgery and Anatomy of the American Medical Association, at the Portland (1905) meeting, Dr. Maurice H. Richardson deals with this subject in such a forceful, clear-cut way, that I take the liberty to quote him at some length:
“‘The burden of the following remarks is that those only should practice surgery who by education in the laboratory, in the dissecting-room, by the bedside, and at the operating-table, are qualified, first, to make reasonably correct deductions from subjective and objective signs; secondly, to give sound advice for or against operations; thirdly, to perform operations skillfully and quickly, and, fourthly, to conduct wisely the after-treatment.“‘The task before me is a serious criticism of what is going on in every community. I do not single out any community or any man. There is in my mind no doubt whatever that surgery is being practiced by those who are incompetent to practice it—by those whose education is imperfect, who lacknatural aptitude, whose environment is such that they never can gain that personal experience which alone will really fit them for what surgery means to-day. They are unable to make correct deductions from histories; to predict probable events; to perform operations skillfully, or to manage after-treatment.“‘All surgeons are liable to error, not only in diagnosis, but in the performance of operations based on diagnosis. Such errors must always be expected and included in the contingencies of the practice of medicine and surgery. Doubtless many of my hearers can recall cases of their own in which useless—or worse than useless—operations have been performed. If, however, serious operations are in the hands of men of large experience, such errors will be reduced to a minimum.“‘Many physicians send patients for diagnosis and opinion as to the advisability of operation without telling the consultant that they themselves are to perform the operation. The diagnosis is made and the operation perhaps recommended, when it appears that the operation is to be in incompetent hands. His advice should be conditional that it be carried out only by the competent. Many operations, like the removal of the vermiform appendix in the period of health, the removal of fibroids which are not seriously offending, the removal of gall-stones that are not causing symptoms, are operations of choice rather than of necessity; they are operations which should never be advised unless they are to be performed by men of the greatest skill. Furthermore, many emergency operations, such as the removal of an inflamed appendix and other operations for lesions which are not necessarily fatal—should be forbidden and the patient left to the chances of spontaneous recovery, if the operation proposed is to be performed by an incompetent.“‘And is not the surgeon, appreciating his own unfitness in spite of years of devotion, in the position to condemn those who lightly take up such burdens without preparation and too often without conscience?“‘In view of these facts, who should perform surgery? How shall the surgeon be best fitted for these grave duties? As a matter of right and wrong, who shall, in the opinion of the medical profession, advise and perform these responsible acts and who shall not? Surgical operations should be performed only by those who are educated for that special purpose.“‘I have no hesitation in saying that the proper fitting of a man for surgical practice requires a much longer experience as a student and assistant than the most exacting schools demand. A man should serve four, five or six years as assistant to an active surgeon. During this period of preparation, as it were, as much time as possible should be given to observing the work of the masters of surgery throughout the world.’
“‘The burden of the following remarks is that those only should practice surgery who by education in the laboratory, in the dissecting-room, by the bedside, and at the operating-table, are qualified, first, to make reasonably correct deductions from subjective and objective signs; secondly, to give sound advice for or against operations; thirdly, to perform operations skillfully and quickly, and, fourthly, to conduct wisely the after-treatment.
“‘The task before me is a serious criticism of what is going on in every community. I do not single out any community or any man. There is in my mind no doubt whatever that surgery is being practiced by those who are incompetent to practice it—by those whose education is imperfect, who lacknatural aptitude, whose environment is such that they never can gain that personal experience which alone will really fit them for what surgery means to-day. They are unable to make correct deductions from histories; to predict probable events; to perform operations skillfully, or to manage after-treatment.
“‘All surgeons are liable to error, not only in diagnosis, but in the performance of operations based on diagnosis. Such errors must always be expected and included in the contingencies of the practice of medicine and surgery. Doubtless many of my hearers can recall cases of their own in which useless—or worse than useless—operations have been performed. If, however, serious operations are in the hands of men of large experience, such errors will be reduced to a minimum.
“‘Many physicians send patients for diagnosis and opinion as to the advisability of operation without telling the consultant that they themselves are to perform the operation. The diagnosis is made and the operation perhaps recommended, when it appears that the operation is to be in incompetent hands. His advice should be conditional that it be carried out only by the competent. Many operations, like the removal of the vermiform appendix in the period of health, the removal of fibroids which are not seriously offending, the removal of gall-stones that are not causing symptoms, are operations of choice rather than of necessity; they are operations which should never be advised unless they are to be performed by men of the greatest skill. Furthermore, many emergency operations, such as the removal of an inflamed appendix and other operations for lesions which are not necessarily fatal—should be forbidden and the patient left to the chances of spontaneous recovery, if the operation proposed is to be performed by an incompetent.
“‘And is not the surgeon, appreciating his own unfitness in spite of years of devotion, in the position to condemn those who lightly take up such burdens without preparation and too often without conscience?
“‘In view of these facts, who should perform surgery? How shall the surgeon be best fitted for these grave duties? As a matter of right and wrong, who shall, in the opinion of the medical profession, advise and perform these responsible acts and who shall not? Surgical operations should be performed only by those who are educated for that special purpose.
“‘I have no hesitation in saying that the proper fitting of a man for surgical practice requires a much longer experience as a student and assistant than the most exacting schools demand. A man should serve four, five or six years as assistant to an active surgeon. During this period of preparation, as it were, as much time as possible should be given to observing the work of the masters of surgery throughout the world.’
“While Dr. Richardson’s ideal may seem almost utopian, there being so wide a difference between the standard he would erect and the one generally established, we must all agree that however impossible of attainment under present conditions, such an ideal is none too high and its future realization not too much to hope for.
“While there is being done enough poor surgery that is honest and well intended, there is much being done that is useless, conscienceless, and done for purely commercial ends. This is truly a disagreeable and painful topic and one that I would gladly pass by, did I not feel that its importance demands some word of condemnation coming through such representative surgical organizations as this.
“The spirit of graft that has pervaded our ranks, especially here in the West, is doing much to lower the standard and undermine the morals and ethics of the profession. When fee-splitting and the paying of commissions for surgical work began to be heard of something like a decade ago, it seemed so palpably dishonest and wrong that it was believed that it wouldsoon die out, or be at least confined to the few in whom the inherited commercial instinct was so strong that they could not get away from it. But it did not die; on the other hand, it has grown and flourished.
“In looking for an explanation for the existence of this evil, I think several factors must be taken into account, among them being certain changes in our social and economic conditions. This is an age of commercialism. We are known to the world as a nation of “dollar chasers,” where nearly everything that should contribute to right living is sacrificed to the Moloch of money. The mad rush for wealth which has characterized the business world, has in a way induced some medical men, whether rightfully or wrongfully, to adopt the same measures in self-protection. The patient or his friends too often insist on measuring the value of our services with a commercial yard-stick, the fee to be paid being the chief consideration. In this way the public must come in for its share of responsibility for existing conditions. So long as there are people who care so little who operates on them, just so long will there be cheap surgeons, cheap in every respect, to supply the demand. The demand for better physicians and surgeons must come in part from those who employ their services.
“Another source of the graft evil is the existence of low-grade, irregular and stock-company medical schools. In many of these schools the entrance requirements are not in evidence outside of their catalogues. With no standard of character or ethics, these schools turn out men who have gotten the little learning they possess in the very atmosphere of graft. The existence of these schools seems less excusable when we consider that our leading medical colleges rank with the best in the world and are ample for the needs of all who should enter the profession. Their constant aim is to still further elevate the standard andto admit as students only those who give unmistakable evidence of being morally and intellectually fit to become members of the profession.
“Enough men of character, however, are entering the field through these better schools to ensure the upholding of those lofty ideals that have characterized the profession in the past and which are essential to our continued progress. I think, therefore, that we may take a hopeful view of the future. The demand for better prepared physicians will eventually close many avenues that are now open to students, greatly to the benefit of all. With the curtailing of the number of students and a less fierce competition which this will bring, there will be less temptation, less necessity, if you will, on the part of general practitioners to ask for a division of fees. He will come to see that honest dealing on his part with the patient requiring special skill will in the long run be the best policy. He will make a just, open charge for the services he has rendered and not attempt to collect a surreptitious fee through a dishonest surgeon for services he has not rendered and could not render. Then, too, there will be less inducement and less opportunity for incompetent and conscienceless men to disgrace the art of surgery.
“The public mind is becoming especially active just at this time in combating graft in all forms, and is ready to aid in its destruction. The intelligent portion of the laity is becoming alive to the patent medicine evil. It is only a question of time when the people will demand that the secular papers which go into our homes shall not contain the vile, disgusting and suggestive quack advertisements that are found to-day. A campaign of reform is being instituted against dishonest politicians, financiers, railroad and insurance magnates, showing that their methods will be no longer tolerated. The moral standards set forprofessional men and men in public life are going to be higher in the future, and with the limelight of public opinion turned on the medical and surgical grafter, the evil will cease to exist. Hand in hand with this reform let us hope that there will come to be established a legal and moral standard of qualification for those who assume to do surgery.
“I feel sure that it is the wish of every member of this association to do everything possible to hasten the coming of this day and to aid in the uplifting of the art of surgery. Our individual effort in this direction must lie largely through the influence we exert over those who seek our advice before beginning the study of medicine, and over those who, having entered the work, are to follow in our immediate footsteps. To the young man who seeks our counsel as to the advisability of commencing the study of medicine, it is our duty to make a plain statement of what would be expected of him, of the cost in time and money, and an estimate of what he might reasonably expect as a reward for a life devoted to ceaseless study, toil and responsibility. If, from our knowledge of the character, attainments and qualifications of the young man we feel that at best he could make but a modicum of success in the work, we should endeavor to divert his ambition into some other channel.
“We should advise the ‘expectant surgeon’ in his preparation to follow as nearly as possible the line of study suggested by Richardson. Then I would add the advice of Senn, viz: ‘To do general practice for several years, return to laboratory work and surgical anatomy, attend the clinics of different operators, and never cease to be a physician. If this advice is followed there will be less unnecessary operating done in the future than has been the case in the past.’ The young man who enters special work without having had experience as a general practitioner, is seriouslyhandicapped. In this age, when we have so frequently to deal with the so-called border-line cases, it is especially well never to cease being a physician.
“We would next have the young man assure himself that he is the possessor of a well-developed, healthy, working ‘surgical conscience.’ No matter how well qualified he may be, his enthusiasm in the earlier years of his work will lead him to do operations that he would refrain from in later life. This will be especially true of malignant disease. He knows that early and thorough radical measures alone hold out hope, and only by repeated unsuccessful efforts will he learn to temper his ambition by the judgment that comes of experience. Pirogoff, the noted surgeon, suffered from a malignant growth. Billroth refused to operate or advise operation. In writing to another surgeon friend he said: ‘I am not the bold operator whom you knew years ago in Zurich. Before deciding on the necessity of an operation, I always propose to myself this question: Would you permit such an operation as you intend performing on your patient to be done on yourself? Years and experience bring in their train a certain degree of hesitancy.’ This, coming from one who in his day was the most brilliant operator in the world, should be remembered by every surgeon, young and old.”
Oh, surgery! Modern aseptic surgery! In the hands of the skilled, conscientious surgeon how great are thy powers for good to suffering humanity! In the hands of shysters “what crimes are committed in thy name!”
With his own school full of shysters and incompetents, and grafters of “new schools” and “systems” to compete with on every hand, the conscientiousphysician seems to be “between the devil and the deep sea!”
With quacks to the right of him, quacks to the left of him, quacks in front of him, all volleying and thundering with their literature to prove that the old schools, and all schools other than theirs, are frauds, impostors and poisoners, about all that is left for the layman to do when sick is to take to the woods.
SOME DEFINITIONS AND HISTORIES.
Romantic Story of Osteopathy’s Origin—An Asthma Cure—Headache Cured by Plowlines—Log Rolling to Relieve Dysentery—Osteopathy is Drugless Healing—Osteopathy is Manual Treatment—Liberty of Blood, Nerves and Arteries—Perfect Skeletal Alignment and Tonic, Ligamentous, Muscular and Facial Relaxation—Andrew T. Still in 1874—Kirksville, Mo., as a Mecca—American School of Osteopathy—The Promised Golden Stream of Prosperity—Shams and Pretenses—The “Mossbacks”—“Who’s Who in Osteopathy.”
Romantic Story of Osteopathy’s Origin—An Asthma Cure—Headache Cured by Plowlines—Log Rolling to Relieve Dysentery—Osteopathy is Drugless Healing—Osteopathy is Manual Treatment—Liberty of Blood, Nerves and Arteries—Perfect Skeletal Alignment and Tonic, Ligamentous, Muscular and Facial Relaxation—Andrew T. Still in 1874—Kirksville, Mo., as a Mecca—American School of Osteopathy—The Promised Golden Stream of Prosperity—Shams and Pretenses—The “Mossbacks”—“Who’s Who in Osteopathy.”
The storyof the origin of Osteopathy is romantic enough to appeal to the fancy of impressionists. It is almost as romantic as the finding of the mysterious stones by the immortal Joe Smith. In this story is embodied the life history of an old-time doctor and pioneer hero in his restless migrations about the frontiers of Kansas and Missouri. His thrilling experiences in the days of border wars and through the Civil War are narrated, and how the germ of the idea of the true cause and cure of disease was planted in his mind by the remark of a comrade as the two lay concealed in a thicket for days to escape border ruffians. Then, later, how the almost simultaneous death of two or three beloved children, whom all his medical learning and that ofother doctors he had summoned had been powerless to save, had caused him to renounce forever the belief that drugs could cure disease. He believed Nature had a true system, and for this he began a patient search. He wandered here and there, almost in the condition of the religious reformers of old, who “wandered up and down clad in sheep-skins and goat-hides, of whom the world was not worthy.” In the name of suffering humanity he desecrated the grave of poor Lo, that he might read from his red bones some clue to the secret.
One Osteopathic journal claims to tell authentically how Still was led to the discovery of the “great truth.” It states that by accidentally curing a case of asthma by “fooling with the bones of the chest,” he was led to the belief that bones out of normal position cause disease.
Still himself tells a rather different story in a popular magazine posing of late years as a public educator in matters of therapeutics. In this magazine Still tells how he discovered the principles of Osteopathy by curing a terrible headache resting the back of his neck across a swing made of his father’s plowlines, and next by writhing on his back across a log to relieve the pain of dysentery. Accidentally the “lesion” was corrected, or the proper center “inhibited,” and his headache and flux immediately cured.
You can take your choice of these various versions of the wonderful discovery.
Ever since Osteopathy began to attract attention, and people began to inquire “What is it?” its leadingpromoters have vied with each other in trying to construct a good definition for their “great new science.”
Here are some of the definitions:
“Osteopathy is the science of drugless healing.” For a genuine “lesion” Osteopath that would not do at all. It is too broad and gives too much scope to the physicians who would do more than “pull bones.”
“Osteopathy is practical anatomy and physiology skillfully and scientifically applied asmanualtreatment of disease.” That definition suits better, because of the “manual treatment.” If you are a true Osteopath you must do itallwith your hands. It will not do to use any mechanical appliances, for if you do you cannot keep up the impression that you are “handling the body with the skilled touch of a master who knows every part of his machine.”
“The human body is a machine run by the unseen force called life, and that it may run harmoniously it is necessary that there be liberty of blood, nerves, and arteries from the generating point to destination.” This definition may be impressive to the popular mind, but, upon analysis, we wonder if any other string of big words might not have had the same effect. “Liberty of blood” is a proposition even a stupid medical man must admit. Of course, there must be free circulation of blood, and massage, or hot and cold applications, or exercise, or anything that will stimulate circulation, is rational. But when “liberty of blood” is mentioned, what is meant by “liberty of arteries”?
“Osteopathy seeks to obtain perfect skeletal alignmentand tonic ligamentous, muscular and facial relaxation.” Some Osteopaths and other therapeutic reformers (?) have contended that medical men purposely used “big words” and Latin names to confound the laity. What must we think of the one just given as a popular definition?
A good many Osteopaths are becoming disgusted with the big words, technical terms and “high-sounding nothings” used by so many Osteopathic writers. The limit of this was never reached, however, until an A.B., Ph.D., D.O. wrote an article to elucidate Osteopathy for the general public in an American encyclopedia. It takes scholarly wisdom to simplify great truths and bring them to the comprehension of ordinary minds. If writers for the medical profession want a lesson in the art of simplifying and popularizing therapeutic science, they should study this article on Osteopathy in the encyclopedia.
A brief history of Osteopathy is perhaps in place. The following summary is taken from leading Osteopathic journals. As to the personality and motives of its founders I know but little; of the motives of its leading promoters a candid public must be the judge. But judgment should be withheld until all the truth is known.
The principles of Osteopathy were discovered by Dr. Andrew T. Still in 1874. He was at that time a physician of the old school practicing in Kansas. His father, brothers and uncles were all medical practitioners. He was at one time scout surgeon under General Fremont. During the Civil War he wassurgeon in the Union army in a volunteer corps. It was during the war that he began to lose faith in drugs, and to search for something natural in combating disease.
Then began a long struggle with poverty and abuse. He was obstructed by his profession and ridiculed by his friends. Fifteen years after the discovery of Osteopathy found Dr. Still located in the little town of Kirksville, Mo., where he had gradually attracted a following who had implicit faith in his power to heal by what to them seemed mysterious movements.
His fame spread beyond the town, and chronic sufferers began to turn toward Kirksville as a Mecca of healing. Others began to desire Still’s healing powers. In 1892 the American School of Osteopathy was founded, which from a small beginning has grown until the present buildings and equipment cost more than $100,000. Hundreds of students are graduated yearly from this school, and large, well-equipped schools have been founded in Des Moines, Philadelphia, Boston and California, with a number of schools of greater or less magnitude scattered in other parts of the country. More than four thousand Osteopaths were in the field in 1907, and this number is being augmented every year by a larger number of physicians than are graduated from Homeopathic colleges, according to Osteopathic reports.
About thirty-five States have given Osteopathy more or less favorable legal recognition.
The discussion of the subject of Osteopathy is ofvery grave importance. Important to practitioners of the old schools of medicine for reasons I shall give further on, and of vital importance to the thousands of men and women who have chosen Osteopathy as their life work. It is even of greater importance in another sense to the people who are called upon to decide which system is right, and which school they ought to rely upon when their lives are at stake.
I shall try to speak advisedly and conservatively, as I wish to do no one injustice. I should be sorry indeed to speak a word that might hinder the cause of truth and progress. I started out to tell of all that prevents the sway of truth and honesty in therapeutics. I should come far short of telling all if I omitted the inconsistencies of this “new science” of healing that dares to assume the responsibility for human life, and makes bold to charge that time-tried systems, with their tens of thousands of practitioners, are wrong, and that the right remedy, or the best remedy for disease has been unknown through all these years until the coming of Osteopathy. And further dares to make the still more serious charge that since the truth has been brought to light, the majority of medical men are so blinded by prejudice or ignorance that theywillnot see.
This is not the first time I have spoken about inconsistencies in the practice of Osteopathy. I saw so much of it in a leading Osteopathic college that when I had finished I could not conscientiously proclaim myself as an exponent of a “complete and well-rounded system of healing, adequate for everyemergency,” as Osteopathy is heralded to be by the journals published for “Osteopathic physicians” to scatter broadcast among the people. I practiced Osteopathy for three years, but only as an Osteopathic specialist. I never during that time accepted responsibility for human life when I did not feel sure that I could do as much for the case as any other might do with other means or some other system.
Because I practiced as a specialist and would not claim that Osteopathy would cure everything that any other means might cure, I have never been called a good disciple of the new science by my brethren. I would not practice as a grafter, find bones dislocated and “subluxated,” and tell people that they must take two or three months’ treatment at twenty-five dollars per month, to have one or two “subluxations” corrected. In consequence I was never overwhelmed by the golden stream of prosperity the literature that made me a convert had assured me would be forthcoming to all “Osteopathic physicians” of even ordinary ability.
As I said, this is not the first time I have spoken of the inconsistencies of Osteopathy. While yet in active practice I became so disgusted with some of the shams and pretences that I wrote a long letter to the editor of an Osteopathic journal published for the good of the profession. This editor, a bright and capable man, wrote me a nice letter in reply, in which he agreed with me about quackery and incompetency in our profession. He did not publish the letter I wrote, or express his honest sentiments, as I hadhoped he might. If what I wrote to that editor was the truth, as he acknowledged in private, it is time the public knew something of it. I believe, also, that many of the large number of Osteopaths who have been discouraged or disgusted, and quit the practice, will approve what I am writing. There is another class of Osteopathic practitioners who, I believe, will welcome the truth I have to tell. This consists of the large number of men and women who are practicing Osteopathy as standing for all that makes up rational physio-therapy.
Speaking of those who have quit the practice of Osteopathy, I will say that they are known by the Osteopathic faculties to be a large and growing number. Yet Osteopathic literature sent to prospective students tells of the small per cent. of those who take the course who fail. It may not be known how many fail, but it is known that many have quit.
A journey half across one of our Western States disclosed one Osteopath in the meat business, one in the real estate business, one clerking in a store, and two, a blind man and his wife, fairly prosperous Osteopathic physicians. This was along one short line of railroad, and there is no reason why it may not be taken as a sample of the percentage of those who have quit in the entire country.
I heard three years ago from a bright young man who graduated with honors, started out with luxurious office rooms in a flourishing city, and was pointed to as an example of the prosperity that comes to the Osteopath from the very start. When I heard fromhim last he was advance bill-poster for a cheap show. Another bright classmate was carrying a chain for surveyors in California.
I received an Osteopathic journal recently containing a list of names, about eight hundred of them, of “mossbacks,” as we were politely called. I say “we,” for my name was on the list. The journal said these were the names of Osteopaths whose addresses were lost and no communication could be had with them. They were wanted badly, it seemed. Just for what, aside from the annual fee to the American Osteopathic Association, was not clear.
I do know what the silence of a good many of them meant. They have quit, and do not care to read the abuse that some of the Osteopathic journals are continually heaping upon those who do not keep their names on the “Who’s Who in Osteopathy” list.
There is a large percentage of failures in other professions, and it is not strange that there should be some in Osteopathy. But when Osteopathic journals dwell upon the large chances of success and prosperity for those who choose Osteopathy as a profession, those who might become students should know the other side.
THE OSTEOPATHIC PROPAGANDA.
Wonderful Growth Claimed to Prove Merit—Osteopathy is Rational Physio-Therapy—Growth is in Exact Proportion to Advertising Received—Booklets and Journals for Gratuitous Distribution—Osteopathy Languishes or Flourishes by Patent Medicine Devices—Circular Letter from Secretary of American Osteopathic Association—Boosts by Governors and Senators—The Especial Protege of Authors—Mark Twain—Opie Reed—Emerson Hough—Sam Jones—The Orificial Surgeon—The M.D. Seeking Job as “Professor”—The Lure of “Honored Doctor” with “Big Income”—No Competition.
Wonderful Growth Claimed to Prove Merit—Osteopathy is Rational Physio-Therapy—Growth is in Exact Proportion to Advertising Received—Booklets and Journals for Gratuitous Distribution—Osteopathy Languishes or Flourishes by Patent Medicine Devices—Circular Letter from Secretary of American Osteopathic Association—Boosts by Governors and Senators—The Especial Protege of Authors—Mark Twain—Opie Reed—Emerson Hough—Sam Jones—The Orificial Surgeon—The M.D. Seeking Job as “Professor”—The Lure of “Honored Doctor” with “Big Income”—No Competition.
Butwhat about Osteopathy? Why has it had such a wonderful growth in popularity? Why have nearly four thousand men and women, most of them intelligent and some of them educated, espoused it as a profession to follow as a life work? These are questions I shall now try to answer.
Osteopathic promoters and enthusiasts claim that the wonderful growth and popularity of Osteopathy prove beyond question its merits as a healing system. I have already dealt at length with reasons why intelligent people are so ready to fall victims to new systems of healing. The “perfect adjustment,” “perfect functioning” theory of Osteopathy is especially attractive to people made ripe for some “druglesshealing” system by causes already mentioned. When Osteopathy is practiced as a combination of all manipulations and other natural aids to the inherent recuperative powers of the body, it will appeal to reason in such a way and bring such good results as to make and keep friends.
I am fully persuaded, and I believe the facts when presented will establish it, that it is the physio-therapy in Osteopathy that wins and holds the favor of intelligent people. But Osteopathy in its own name, taught as “a well-rounded system of healing adequate for every emergency,” has grown and spread largely as a “patent medicine” flourishes,i. e., in exact proportion to the advertising it has received. I would not presume to make this statement as merely my opinion. The question at issue is too important to be treated as a matter of opinion. I will present facts, and let my readers settle the point in their own minds.
Every week I get booklets or “sample copies” of journals heralding the wonderful curative powers of Osteopathy. These are published not as journals for professional reading, but to be sold to the practitioners by the hundreds or thousands, to be given to their patients for distribution by these patients to their friends. The publishers of these “boosters” say, and present testimonials to prove it, that Osteopaths find their practice languishes or flourishes just in proportion to the numbers of these journals and booklets they keep circulating in their communities. Here is a sample testimonial I received some time since on a postal card:
“Gentlemen: Since using your journals more patients have come to me than I could treat, many of them coming from neighboring towns. Quite a number have had to go home without being treated, leaving their names so that they could be notified later, as I can get to them. Your booklets bring them O. K.”
“Gentlemen: Since using your journals more patients have come to me than I could treat, many of them coming from neighboring towns. Quite a number have had to go home without being treated, leaving their names so that they could be notified later, as I can get to them. Your booklets bring them O. K.”
The boast is often made that Osteopathy is growing in spite of bitter opposition and persecution, and is doing it on its merits—doing it because “Truth is mighty and will prevail.” At one time I honestly believed this to be true, but I have been convinced by highest Osteopathic authority that it is not true. As some of that proof here is an extract from a circular letter from the secretary of the American Osteopathic Association:
“Now, Doctor, we feel that you have the success of Osteopathy at heart, and if you realize the activity and complete organization of the American Medical Association and their efforts to curb our limitations, and do not become a member of this Association, which stands opposed to the efforts of the big monopoly, we must believe that you are not familiar with the earnestness of the A. O. A. and its efforts. We must work in harmonious accord and with an organized purpose.When we rest on our oars the death knell begins to sound.Can you not see that unless you co-operate with your fellow-practitioners in this national effort you aresounding your own limitations?”
“Now, Doctor, we feel that you have the success of Osteopathy at heart, and if you realize the activity and complete organization of the American Medical Association and their efforts to curb our limitations, and do not become a member of this Association, which stands opposed to the efforts of the big monopoly, we must believe that you are not familiar with the earnestness of the A. O. A. and its efforts. We must work in harmonious accord and with an organized purpose.When we rest on our oars the death knell begins to sound.Can you not see that unless you co-operate with your fellow-practitioners in this national effort you aresounding your own limitations?”
This from thesecretaryof the American Osteopathic Association, when we have boasted of superiorequipment for intelligent physicians. Incidentally we pause to make excuse for the expressions: “Curbing our limitations” and “sounding your own limitations.”
But does the idea that when we quit working as an organized body “our death knell begins to sound,” indicate that Osteopathic leaders are content to trust the future of Osteopathy to its merits?
If Osteopathic promoters do not feel that the life of their science depends on boosting, what did the secretary of the A.O.A. mean when he said, “Upon the success of these efforts depends the weal or woe of Osteopathy as an independent system”? If truth always grows under persecution, how can the American Medical Association kill Osteopathy when it is so well known by the people?
Nearly four thousand Osteopaths are scattered in thirty-six States where they have some legal recognition, and they are treating thousands of invalids every day. If they are performing the wonderful cures Osteopathic journals tell of, why are we told that the welfare of the system depends upon the noise that is made and the boosting that is done?
Has it required advertising to keep people using anesthetics since it was demonstrated that they would prevent pain?
Has it required boosting to keep the people resorting to surgery since the benefits of modern operations have been proved?
Does it look as if Osteopathy has been standing or advancing on its merits? Does it not seem that Osteopathy, as a complete system, is mostly aname,and “lives, moves, and has its being” in boosting? It seems to have been about the best boosted fad ever fancied by a foolish people. Governors and senators have boosted for it. Osteopathic journals have published again and again the nice things a number of governors said when they signed the bills investing Osteopathy with the dignity of State authority.
A certain United States senator from Ohio has won more notoriety as a champion of Osteopathy than he has lasting fame as a statesman.
Osteopathy has been the especial protégé of authors. Mark Twain once went up to Albany and routed an army of medical lobbyists who were there to resist the passage of a bill favorable to Osteopathy. For this heroic deed Mark is better known to Osteopaths to-day than even for his renowned history of Huckleberry Finn. He is in danger of losing his reputation as a champion of the “under dog in the fight.” Lately he has gone on the warpath again. This time to annihilate poor Mother Eddy and her fond delusion.
Opie Reed is a delightful writer while he sticks to the portrayal of droll Southern character. Ella Wheeler Wilcox is admirable for the beauty and boldness with which she portrays the passions and emotions of humanity. But they are both better known to Osteopaths for the bouquets they have tossed at Osteopathy than for their profound human philosophy that used to be promulgated by theChicago American.
Emerson Hough gave a little free advertising in his “Heart’s Desire.” There may have been “method in his madness,” for that Osteopathic horse doctoring scene no doubt sold many a book for the author.
Sam Jones also helped along with some of his striking originality. Sam said, “There is as much difference between Osteopathy and massage as between playing a piano and currying a horse.” The idea of comparing the Osteopath’s manipulations of the human body to the skilled touch of the pianist upon his instrument was especially pleasing to Osteopaths. However, Sam displayed about the same comprehension of his subject that preachers usually exhibit who try to say nice things about the doctors when they get their doctoring gratis or at reduced rates.
These champions of Osteopathy no doubt mean well. They can be excused on the ground that they got out of place to aid in the cause of “struggling truth.” But what shall we say of medical men, some of them of reputation and great influence, who uphold and champion new systems under such conditions that it is questionable whether they do it from principle or policy?
Osteopathic journals have made much of an article written by a famous “orificial surgeon.” The article appears on the first page of a leading Osteopath journal, and is headed, “An Expert Opinion on Osteopathy.” Among the many good things he says of the “new science” is this: “The full benefit of a single sitting can be secured in from three to ten minutes instead of an hour or more, as required bymassage.” I shall discuss the time of an average Osteopathic treatment further on, but I should like to see how long this brother would hold his practice if he were an Osteopath and treated from three to ten minutes.
He also says that “Osteopathy is so beneficial to cases of insanity that it seems quite probable that this large class of terrible sufferers may be almost emancipated from their hell.” I shall also say more further on of what I know of Osteopathy’s record as an insanity cure. There is this significant thing in connection with this noted specialist’s boost for Osteopathy. The journal printing this article comments on it in another number; tells what a great man the specialist is, and incidentally lets Osteopaths know that if any of them want to add a knowledge of “orificial surgery” to their “complete science,” this doctor is the man from whom to get it, as he is the “great and only” in his specialty, and is big and broad enough to appreciate Osteopathy.
The most despicable booster of any new system of therapeutics is the physician who becomes its champion to get a job as “professor” in one of its colleges. Of course it is a strong temptation to a medical man who has never made much of a reputation in his own profession.
You may ask, “Have there been many such medical men?” Consult the faculty rolls of the colleges of these new sciences, and you will be surprised, no doubt, to find how many put M.D. after their names. Why are they there? Some of these were honestconverts to the system, perhaps. Some wanted the honor of being “Professor Doctor,” maybe, and some may have been lured by the same bait that attracts so many students into Osteopathic colleges. That is, the positive assurance of “plenty of easy money” in it.
One who has studied the real situation in an effort to learn why Osteopathy has grown so fast as a profession, can hardly miss the conclusion that advertising keeps the grist of students pouring into Osteopathic mills. There is scarcely a corner of the United States that their seductive literature does not reach. Practitioners in the field are continually reminded by the schools from which they graduated that their alma mater looks largely to their solicitations to keep up the supply of recruits.
Their advertising, the tales of wonderful cures and big money made, appeal to all classes. It seems that none are too scholarly and none too ignorant to become infatuated with the idea of becoming an “honored doctor” with a “big income.” College professors and preachers have been lured from comfortable positions to become Osteopaths. Shrewd traveling men, seduced by the picture of a permanent home, have left the road to become Osteopathic physicians and be “rich and honored.”
Other classes come also. To me, when a student of Osteopathy, it was pathetic and almost tragic to observe the crowds of men and women who had been seduced from spheres of drudging usefulness, such as clerking, teaching, barbering, etc., to become money-making doctors. In their old callings they had lostall hope of gratifying ambition for fame and fortune, but were making an honest living. The rosy pictures of honor, fame and twenty dollars per day, that the numerous Osteopathic circulars and journals painted, were not to be withstood.
These circulars told them that the fields into which they might go and reap that $20 per day were unlimited. They said: “There are dozens of ministers ready to occupy each vacant pulpit, and as many applicants for each vacancy in the schools. Each hamlet has four or five doctors, where it can support but one. The legal profession is filled to the starving point. Young licentiates in the older professions all have to pass through a starving time. Not so in Osteopathy. There is no competition.” The picture was a rosy dream of triumphant success! When they had mastered the great science and become “Doctors of Osteopathy,” the world was waiting with open arms and pocketbooks to receive them.
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OSTEOPATHY.
Infallible, Touch-the-Button System that Always Cured—Indefinite Movements and Manipulations—Wealth of Undeveloped Scientific Facts—Osteopaths Taking M.D. Course—The Standpatter and the Drifter—The “Lesionist”—“Bone Setting”—“Inhibiting a Center”—Chiropractics—“Finest Anatomists in the World”—How to Cure Torticollis, Goitre and Enteric Troubles—A Successful Osteopath—Timid Old Maids—Osteopathic Philanthropy.
Infallible, Touch-the-Button System that Always Cured—Indefinite Movements and Manipulations—Wealth of Undeveloped Scientific Facts—Osteopaths Taking M.D. Course—The Standpatter and the Drifter—The “Lesionist”—“Bone Setting”—“Inhibiting a Center”—Chiropractics—“Finest Anatomists in the World”—How to Cure Torticollis, Goitre and Enteric Troubles—A Successful Osteopath—Timid Old Maids—Osteopathic Philanthropy.
Howdesperately those students worked. Many of them were men and women with gray heads, who had found themselves stranded at a time of life when they should have been able to retire on a competency. They had staked their little all on this last venture, and what was before them if they should fail heaven only knew. How eagerly they looked forward to the time when they should have struggled through the lessons in anatomy, chemistry, physiology, symptomatology and all the rest, and should be ready to receive the wonderful principles of Osteopathy they were to apply in performing the miraculous cures that were to make them wealthy and famous. Need I tell the physician who was a conscientious student of anatomy in his school days, that there was disappointment when the time came to enter the class in “theory and practice” of Osteopathy?
There had been vague ideas of a systematized, infallible, touch-the-button system thatalwayscured. Instead, we were instructed in a lot of indefinite movements and manipulations that somehow left us speculating as to just how much of it all was done for effect.
We had heard so often that Osteopathy was a complete satisfying sciencethat did things specifically! Now it began to dawn upon us that there was indeed a “wealth of undeveloped scientific facts” in Osteopathy, as those glittering circulars had said when they thought to attract young men ambitious for original research. They had said, “Much yet remains to be discovered.” Some of us wondered if the “undeveloped” and “undiscovered” scientific facts were not the main constituents of the “science.”
The students expected something exact and tangible, and how eagerly they grasped at anything in the way of bringing quick results in curing the sick.
If Osteopathy is so complete, why did so many students, after they had received everything the learned (?) professors had to impart, procure Juettner’s “Modern Physio-Therapy” and Ling’s “Manual Therapy” and Rosse’s “Cures Without Drugs” and Kellogg’s work on “Hydrotherapy”? They felt that they needed all they could get.
It was customary for the students to begin “treating” after they had been in school a few months, and medical men will hardly be surprised to know that they worked with more faith in their healing powers and performed more wonderful (?) cures in their freshman year than they ever did afterward.
I have in mind a student, one of the brightest I ever met, who read a cheap book on Osteopathic practice, went into a community where he was unknown, and practiced as an Osteopathic physician. In a few months he had made enough money to pay his way through an Osteopathic college, which he entered professing to believe that Osteopathy would cure all the ills flesh is heir to, but which he left two years later to take a medical course. He secured his D.O. degree, but I notice that it is his M.D. degree he flourishes with pride.
Can students be blamed for getting a little weak in faith when men who told them that the great principles of Osteopathy were sufficient to cureeverything, have been known to backslide so far as to go and take medical courses themselves?
How do you suppose it affects students of an Osteopathic college to read in a representative journal that the secretary of their school, and the greatest of all its boosters, calls medical men into his own family when there is sickness in it?
There are many men and women practicing to-day who try to be honest and conscientious, and by using all the good in Osteopathy, massage, Swedish movements, hydrotherapy, and all the rest of the adjuncts of physio-therapy, do a great deal of good. The practitioner who does use these agencies, however, is denounced by the stand-patters as a “drifter.” They say he is not a true Osteopath, but a mongrel who is belittling the great science. That circular letter from the secretary of the American Osteopathic Associationsaid that one of the greatest needs of organization was to preserve Osteopathy in its primal purity as it came from its founder, A. T. Still.
If our medical brethren and the laity could read some of the acrimonious discussions on the question of using adjuncts, they would certainly be impressed with the exactness (?) of Osteopathic science.
There is one idea of Osteopathy that even the popular mind has grasped, and that is that it is essentially finding “lesions” and correcting them. Yet the question has been very prominent and pertinent among Osteopaths: “Are you a lesion Osteopath?” Think of it, gentlemen, asking an Osteopath if he is a “lesionist”! Yet there are plenty of Osteopaths who are stupid enough (or honest enough) not to be able to find bones “subluxed” every time they look at a patient. Practitioners who really want to do their patrons good will use adjuncts even if they are denounced by the stand-patters.
I believe every conscientious Osteopath must sometimes feel that it is safer to use rational remedies than to rely on “bone setting,” or “inhibiting a center,” but for the grafter it is not so spectacular and involves more hard work.
The stand-patters of the American Osteopathic Association have not eliminated all trouble when they get Osteopaths to stick to the “bone setting, inhibiting” idea. The chiropractic man threatens to steal their thunder here. The Chiropractor has found that when it comes to using mysterious maneuvers and manipulations as bases for mind cure, one thing isabout as good as another, except that the more mysterious a thing looks the better it works. So the Chiropractor simply gives his healing “thrusts” or his wonderful “adjustments,” touches the buttons along the spine as it were, when—presto! disease has flown before his healing touch and blessed health has come to reign instead!
The Osteopath denounces the Chiropractor as a brazen fraud who has stolen all that is good in Chiropractics (if thereisanything good) from Osteopathy. But Chiropractics follows so closely what the “old liner” calls the true theory of Osteopathy that, between him and the drifter who gives an hour of crude massage, or uses the forbidden accessories, the true Osteopath has a hard time maintaining the dignity (?) of Osteopathy and keeping its practitioners from drifting.
Some of the most ardent supporters of true Osteopathy I have ever known have drifted entirely away from it. After practicing two or three years, abusing medicine and medical men all the time, and proclaiming to the people continually that they had in Osteopathy all that a sick world could ever need, it is suddenly learned that the “Osteopath is gone.” He has “silently folded his tent and stolen away,” and where has he gone? He has gone to a medical college to study that same medicine he has so industriously abused while he was gathering in the shekels as an Osteopath. Going to learn and practice the science he has so persistently denounced as a fraud and a curse to humanity.
The intelligent, conscientious Osteopath who dares to brave the scorn of the stand-patter and use all the legitimate adjuncts of Osteopathy found in physio-therapy, may do a great deal of good as a physician. I have found many physicians willing to acknowledge this, and even recommend the services of such an Osteopath when physio-therapy was indicated.
When a physician, however, meets a fellow who claims to have in his Osteopathy a wonderful system, complete and all-sufficient to cope with any and all diseases, and that his system is founded on a knowledge of the relation and function of the various parts and organs of the body such as no other school of therapeutics has ever been able to discover, then he knows that he has met a man of the same mental and moral calibre as the shyster in his own school. He knows he has met a fellow who is exploiting a thing, that may be good in its way and place, as a graft. And he knows that this grafter gets his wonderful cures largely as any other quack gets his; the primary effects of his “scientific manipulations” are on the minds of those treated.
The intelligent physician knows that the Osteopath got his boastedly superior knowledge of anatomy mostly from the same text-books and same class of cadavers that other physicians had to master if they graduated from a reputable school. All that talk we have heard so much about the Osteopaths being the “finest anatomists in the world” sounds plausible, and is believed by the laity generally.
The quotation I gave above has been much used inOsteopathic literature as coming from an eminent medical man. What foundation is there for such a belief? The Osteopathmaybe a good anatomist. He has about the same opportunities to learn anatomy the medical student has. If he is a good and conscientious student he may consider his anatomy of more importance than does the medical student who is not expecting to do much surgery. If he is a natural shyster and shirk he can get through a course in Osteopathy and get his diploma, and this diploma may be about the only proof he could ever give that he is a “superior anatomist.”
Great stress has always been laid by Osteopaths upon the amount of study and research done by their students on the cadaver. I want to give you some specimens of the learning of the man (an M.D.) who presided over the dissecting-room when I pursued my “profound research” on the “lateral half.” This great man, whose superior knowledge of anatomy, I presume, induced by the wise management of the college to employ him as a demonstrator, in an article written for the organ of the school expresses himself thus: