Philosophy of OsteopathyStill, A. T. (Andrew Taylor)
Philosophy
Philosophy of Osteopathy
Still, A. T. (Andrew Taylor)
Osteopathic medicine
To illustrate, we will take the lower limb, whether there is lameness,
soreness, gouty, rheumatic, neuralgic, swollen, shrunken, feverish,
cold, smooth and glassy, sores, ulcers, erysipelas, milkleg, varicose
veins, or any defect that the patient may complain of, who is the only
reliable book or being of symptomatology. For convenience we will divide
that lower limb into five parts, the foot, leg, thigh, pelvis and lumbar
region. The patient (symptomatologist) tells us he has a pain in front,
center and under part of foot. Now the doctor or bird dog, can find
quails of reason in but one field that would lead him to the cause. As
this field is divided into five parts and the hunter has carefully
searched four divisions, he will find the cause or causes in the fifth
and none other. If a dislocated bone is not found in the foot after
ascertaining that there has been no crushing by falling bodies, horses
feet, stepping on glass, nails and other things that would penetrate the
foot, and irritate by being broken off, closed and remaining in the
flesh; we will explore the leg for the quail, ascertain if the
articulation is normal at ankle and knee. If we find the bone is not
broken, the leg has no splinters of wood, nor injured flesh by bites
from dogs or other animals, nor any other substance that would injure
the leg, we are prepared to pass on and explore another place for pain
in the foot. We go on to division No. 3 or the thigh division, and
ascertain if the thigh is normal in all conditions, properly in socket,
with all muscles, ligaments and nerves unoppressed. There are but two
more divisions left for exploration, and they are the most important and
interesting of the five, the pelvis and lumbar, through which all the
nerves of the limb pass. We must stop at pelvis and observe carefully
that there is no twist of ligaments before going to lumbar, which is the
last of the five divisions. If we have found nothing in the previous
four, and have explored them as carefully as we should, we have but one
brush heap left, and that one contains the quail that we have been
hunting for. As the lumbar contains and conveys all nerve forces to the
pelvis from the brain and all divisions of the lower limbs, we will now
examine the articulations of that part of the spine, and in that we are
very certain to find the cause if we have made no mistake in our
examination in the preceding divisions of the limb. As we enter the
exploration of this part of the spine we must remember that we are about
to deal with the many divisions of the nerves of the _cauda equina_. The
great question before us, comes after this form. What would wound or
bruise any division of nerves that would lead by the way of the great or
lesser sciatic, to a bone in the front and under side of the foot? Jars,
strains, twists, and dislocations, must be carefully searched for. A
partial dislocation of one side of the spine would produce a twist which
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