Annual prospectus : session 1937-1938 / British School of Osteopathy.

  • British School of Osteopathy
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual prospectus : session 1937-1938 / British School of Osteopathy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/36 page 10
    TWIRISOIRNY ZANNID) TPRYANCINICE, (OP IB, JANIBIRE Wy WAwALO}R SPL, The Science of Osteopathy was first discovered by a medical practitioner, Dr. A. T. Still. For many years he ‘* peddled drugs ”’ and, during those years, he became more and more convinced of ihe necessity for a new method of healing. For many years he conducted research experiments along original lines. In 1874 he first practised his ideas in definite form as a new system of heating. In the years that followed he set to work to test, in practical experience as a healer, these principles. This brought him to the attention of the public and those who benefited by his healing methods rallied round him. In 1892, to meet the demands of anxious students, he established the first Osteopathic College, to reform and improve the methods used in medicine and surgery, and to build up a system of healing and a scientific curriculum of study based upon his new idees. The fundamental principle he laid down at the foundation of Osteopathy was that bodily ailments are, in some definite way, associated with maladjustments of the structure and consequent malfunctioning due to obstructive interference or irritative conditions produced by the malformation of structural conditions. These obstructive conditions cause changes in the functioning of the natural resistance of the body, and thus lead up to what are called diseases. Osteopathic therapy deals with these diseased conditions by discover - ing their maladjustments and correcting them, and thus restoring to the body its inherent powers of immunity and enabling the body to function normally. He gave a new meaning to the word “ lesion.”’ It was his idea that a lesion was that which implied the change in some articular field, the articulation being modified to the extent of interference with free mobility by the establishment of fixation within the range of normal movement, thus rendering normal mobility impossible. Scientific investigation in the fields of Biology, Anatomy, Physiology and Mechanics has demonstrated many of the underlying principles which form the bedrock of Osteopathic therapy. In this way the basic sciences have demonstrated the truth of Still’s primary principle, that structural normality and normal body functions must be co-ordinate and correlative if the body is to preserve vital integrity which we call health. Dr. Still always recognised that the body contained its own laboratories for the manufacture of both nutritive and healing sub- stances. Hence, he put first in the list of essential conditions, the normalising of the body in structure and function so as to maintain the capacity of the body to sustain and preserve life; secondly, he put the supply of the necessary materials to furnish substances for the laboratory activities. Thirdly, he placed hygiene, sanitation and exercise as the common sense means by which the body could use its Own resources of structure, function, machinery and laboratory as the agents of active life and in immunisation against diseases. He made the basic sciences, i.e., Anatomy, Physiology, Biology and Biochemistry, the foundation of his educational system. Upon
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