Philosophy of OsteopathyStill, A. T. (Andrew Taylor)
Philosophy
Philosophy of Osteopathy
Still, A. T. (Andrew Taylor)
Osteopathic medicine
Here I want to emphasize that the word treat has but one meaning, that
is to know you are right, and do your work accordingly. I will only
hint, and would feel embarrassed to go any farther than to hint to you,
the importance of an undisturbed condition of the five known kinds of
nerves, namely: sensation, motion, nutrition, voluntary and involuntary,
all of which you must labor to keep in perpetual harmony while treating
any disease of the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, spine and limbs.
If you would allow yourself to reason at all, you must know that
sensation must be normal and always on guard to give notice by local or
general misery, of unnatural accumulation of the circulating fluids.
Each set of nerves must be free to act and do their part. Your duty as a
master mechanic is to know that the engine kept is in so perfect a
condition that there will be no functional disturbance to any nerve,
vein, or artery that supplies and governs the skin, the fascia, the
muscle, the blood or any fluid that should freely circulate to sustain
life and renovate the system from deposits that would cause what we call
disease.
A NATURAL CURE.
Your Osteopathic knowledge has surely taught you, that with an intimate
acquaintance with the nerve and blood supply, you can arrive at a
knowledge of the hidden cause of disease, and conduct your treatment to
a successful termination. This is not by your knowledge of chemistry,
but by the absolute knowledge of what is in man. What is normal, and
what abnormal, what is effect and how to find the cause. Do you ever
suspect renal or bladder trouble without first receiving knowledge from
your patient, that there is soreness and tenderness in the region of the
kidneys at some point along the spine. By this knowledge you are invited
to explore the spine for the purpose of ascertaining whether it is
normal or not. If by your intimate acquaintance and observance of a
normal spine you should detect an abnormal form although it be small,
you are then admonished to look out for disease of kidneys, bladder or
both, from the discovered cause for disturbance of the renal nerves by
such displacement, or some slight variation from the normal in the
articulation of the spine. If this is not worthy of your attention, your
mind is surely too crude to observe those fine beginnings that lead to
death. Your skill would be of little use in incipient cases of Bright's
disease of the kidneys. Has not your acquaintance with the human body
opened your mind's eye to observe that in the laboratory of the human
body, the most wonderful chemical results are being accomplished every
day, minute and hour of your life? Can that laboratory be running in
good order and tolerate the forming of a gall or bladder stone? Does not
the body generate acids, alkalies, substances and fluids necessary to
wash out all impurities? If you think an unerring God has made all those
necessary preparations, why not so assert, and stand upon that stone?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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