Quacks and grafters / by Ex-osteopath; being an exposé of the state of therapeutics at the present time, with some reasons why such grafters flourish, and suggestions to remedy the deplorable muddle.

Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks and grafters / by Ex-osteopath; being an exposé of the state of therapeutics at the present time, with some reasons why such grafters flourish, and suggestions to remedy the deplorable muddle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Doc's failure to stop his rheumatic pains. All doc- tors know that rheumatism is the universal disease of our fickle climate. If it were not for rheumatic pains, and neuralgic pains that often come from nerves irritated by contracted muscles, the Osteopath in the average country town would get more lonesome than he does. People who are otherwise skeptical con- cerning the merits of Osteopathy will admit that it seems rational treatment for rheumatism. Yet this is a disease that Osteopathy of the spe- cific-adjustment, bone-setting, nerve-inhibiting brand has little beneficial effect upon. All the Osteopathic treatments I ever gave or saw given in cases of rheu- matism that really did any good, were long, laborious massages. The medical man who as professor in an Osteopathic college said, When the Osteopath with his vast knowledge of anatomy gets hold of a case of torticollis he inhibits the nerves and cures it in five minutes, was talking driveling rot. I have seen some of the best Osteopaths treat wry-neck, and the work they did was to knead and stretch and pull, which by starting circulation and working out soreness, gradually relieved the patient. A hot application, by expanding tissues and stimu- lating circulation, would have had the same effect, perhaps more slowly manifested. To call any Osteopathic treatment massage is al- ways resented as an insult by the guardians of the science. What is the Osteopath doing, who rolls and twists and pulls and kneads for a full hour, if he isn't giving a massage treatment? Of course, it [113]