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Dr Still (1828-1917) was a fourth generation American of Scottish ancestry.  He was trained as a physician and surgeon, and served in the Union Army of the North in the American Civil War.  After the war, he attempted to interest the local medical schools in his ideas, but was rejected and so in 1892 he founded the first College of Osteopathic Medicine.  The Osteopathic profession in the United States fought for parity (i.e. full practice rights) with their allopathic counterparts and by the early 1960's finally achieved this recognition in all States.

What is Osteopathy?  I offer this extract from an article that Dr A.T. Still was invited to write for the general public  published in January 1908 .

"Osteopathy is simply this: the law of human life is absolute, and I believe that God has placed the remedy for every disease within the material house in which the spirit of life dwells.  I believe that the Maker of man has deposited in some part or throughout the whole system of the human body, drugs in abundance to cure all infirmities:  that all the remedies necessary to health are compounded within the human body. They can be administered by adjusting the body in such manner that the remedies may naturally associate themselves together. So I hold that man should study and use only the drugs that are found in his own drugstore - that is, in his own body....."

Osteopathy is a science built upon this principle:  that man is a machine, needing, when diseased, an expert mechanical engineer to adjust its machinery.  It stands for the labour, both mental and physical, of the engineer, or Osteopath, who comes to correct the abnormal conditions of the human body and restore them to the normal.  Of course, 'normal' does not simply mean a readjustment of bones to a normal position in order that muscles and ligaments may with freedom play in their allotted places.  Beyond all this lies still greater questions to be solved:  How and when to apply the touch which sets free the chemicals of life as Nature designs?

Dr Still referred to Osteopathy as "the law of mind,  matter and motion". Motion is life;  nothing is still  - everything,  in some subtle way,  moves.  I remember when we were holidaying in Cornwall and my son Andrew was about three years old. His little finger got caught in a self-closing firedoor. Andrew's finger was bleeding at the nail and he was screaming fit to burst!  We had to drive about 40 miles to the nearest hospital.  As my wife Asmaniah drove,  I sat Andrew in my lap and very carefully palpated his finger. I could feel....nothing. There was no involuntary motion,  shortening/lengthening (flexion/extension), palpable in the distal phalanx.  I applied very slight compression and flexion to the finger and after some time started to feel a response in the tissue. As this happened Andrew's wailing gradually ceased.  The X-ray at the hospital did not show any fracture and we were advised that he would lose the nail within a few weeks.  In fact this did not happen and the following day he was back to normal.     

The osteopathic philosophy sees the body as a single unit of function.  Whilst there are many systems or 'bodies' within the human form,  they are all fundamentally connected to one another.  So the body of blood vessels,  the body of the digestion,  the body of muscles,  the body of the nervous system and the body of the bony structure all interact with and affect each other.

An example of how dysfunction can affect other, seemingly unrelated parts of the body may be seen in the story of a young lady who started to experience intermittent numbness in the left side of her face which she found very distressing. The numbness had started shortly after she had had her first child eighteen months before I first saw her.  Her general medical practitioner (GP) had referred her to a neurologist. CT scans showed no abnormality and the neurologist was unable to find any reason for the numbness.  A second neurologist came to the same conclusion. The patient had been referred to a psychiatrist because her GP wondered if there might be a problem with the bonding between the patient and her infant. It was at this point that she came to see me. When I examined her I found that her pelvis had not recovered from the birth.  Her sacral apex was held posterior, producing 'drag' on the dural membrane and thereby distorting cranial base function.  The reciprocal tension under which the falx cerebrum and tentorium cerebelli function had also been altered,  thereby affecting the gasserian ganglion in Meckel's cave.  At the end of two weeks' treatment the patient's pelvis had been restored to normal function, her numbness ceased and did not return.  She remained symptom-free (as reported by other members of her family and many friends whom I saw for years afterwards!).

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