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These membranous and cartilaginous components of the occiput are enclosed in a strong envelope of external  periosteum and internal dura mater  which  is the only means of  retaining them in correct  alignment during this critical period because  their intraosseous unions are far from stable.  These  cartilaginous  unions are subjected to marked pressure and may become aetiological factors leading to disturbances within the CNS.  Such distortions of the occiput may involve even the fissural demarcation between the  membranous  interparietal occiput and the cartilaginous  supra-occiput of the squama.  Up to the age of five or six years, there are no "mechanical gears" in the cranium in that the sutures have yet to be formed. 

Magoun has described how  slight rotation of the opisthion with lateral compression of the condylar part against the temporal occur as a result of the birth process.  There is also a crowding of the basiocciput by  approximation of the anterior ends of the condylar parts.  This may have the effect of putting increased tension through the slip of dura mater that divides the jugular foramen and irritating the cranial nerves passing through the area.  In addition the petrosal and sigmoid sinuses are vulnerable to distorted function as they exit through the jugular foramina carrying 95% of the drainage from the head.

When I examined the patient, he had a compression of the condylar parts on the left with a lateral spread on the right. It should be born in mind that by the time this child was seen considerable development had already occurred.  The bones of the cranial base have thickened,  the sutures have closed and the serrations are developing although little interlocking is present for another year or two.  The condylosquamous junction is beginning to ossify and the squamosal fissures have long since disappeared (at one year old).

A decompression procedure was carried out on the first occasion that he was seen.

When he returned 10 days later, his mother described the child as being 60% improved. She had exhibited considerable skepticism at the time of the first visit. However she declared that she had noted a definite improvement from the day after the first treatment. After the  second visit the child was reported as having been pain free with a normally formed stool.

I presented this case to a mixed audience which included a number of medical practitioners.  One of them suggested that the child might have got better anyway and that this was just co-incident with my treatment.  I asked him if he had given a medication to this child with similar results whether he would have assumed that the medication had worked.  He replied in the affirmative.  So I asked him why he could not accept that after two and a half years something else might have worked.  "Well" he said "we know that medicine works!"



References:

1.A.T. Still   The Ladies' Home Journal   January 1908
2. A.T. Still   The Philosophy and Mechanical Principles of Osteopathy  Hudson Kimberly  1902
3.  Put simply,  there is a continuity of the membrane covering the spinal cord because it attaches to the sacrum (tail bone) and to the floor (on the inside) of the skull where a little pouch of this membrane houses the 'junction box' for the sensory nerve of the face.  The sacrum can therefore affect function at floor of the skull and vice versa.
4. Retzlaff EW  Michael DK  Roppel RM  Cranial Bone Mobility  J Am Osteopath Assoc 74:138-146 1975
5.Simply put,  this is the ability of some materials to transform mechanical stress into electrical energy.
6. R O Becker   The Body Electric  Quill  1985
7. Bassett  C A L  Biophysical principles affecting bone structure   The Biochemistry and Physiology of Bone   New York,  Academic Press Inc 1971
8.Anderson J  Eriksson C  Electrical properties of wet collagen Nature  218:166-168   1968
9. Maroudas  A.  Physiochemical properties of cartilage in the light of ion exchange theory.  Biophys J.,  8:575-595   1968
10. C Trowbridge  Andrew Taylor Still 1828-1917  Thomas Jefferson University Press  1991
11. Sutherland WG  Teachings in the Science of Osteopathy  Rudra Press 1990
12.The RAST or Radioallergosorbent Test is a laboratory test for the presence or absence of food allergy.
13.Magoun, H.I., Osteopathy in The Cranial Field, Journal Printing G., Kirksville, MO 3rd Edition, 1976
14.The baby's head rotates as it comes down into the birth canal. This rotation, coupled with the downwards pressure of the uterine contractions,  can cause a slight rotation of the occiput (the bone at base of the skull -at the back) with compression and crowding of the area where three cranial nerves  (9th 10th and 12th nerves) leave the skull.  One of these nerves control peristalsis (smooth muscle contractions) from the lower third of the oesophagus to the last part of the large bowel. Irritation of this nerve can therefore be a cause of colic,  reflux, wind or bowel dysfunction (e.g. diarrohea).
15. The occiput (the bone at base of the skull) is in four parts at birth with cartilaginous portions joining the parts together.  Although, at two and a half years old, this young boy's occiput was well on the way to fusion,  it was still possible to achieve a change in function by reducing the compressive force that had remained in the tissue.

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