Philosophy of OsteopathyStill, A. T. (Andrew Taylor)
Philosophy
Philosophy of Osteopathy
Still, A. T. (Andrew Taylor)
Osteopathic medicine
As you contemplate studying this science and have asked to know the
necessary studies, I wish to impress it upon your minds that you begin
with anatomy, and you end with anatomy, a knowledge of anatomy is all
you want or need, as it is all you can use or ever will use in your
practice, although you may live one hundred years. You have asked for my
opinion as the founder of the science. Yours is an honest question, and
God being my judge I will give you just as honest an answer. As I have
said, a knowledge of anatomy with its application covers every inch of
ground that is necessary to qualify you to become a skillful and
successful Osteopath, when you go forth into the world to combat
diseases.
WHAT I MEAN BY ANATOMY.
I will now define what I mean by anatomy. I speak by comparison and
tell you what belongs to the study of anatomy. I will take a chicken
whose parts and habits all persons are familiar with to illustrate. The
chicken has a head, a neck, a breast, a tail, two legs, two wings, two
eyes, two ears, two feet, one gizzard, one crop, one set of bowels, one
liver, and one heart. This chicken has a nervous system, a glandular
system, a muscular system, a system of lungs and other parts and
principles not necessary to speak of in detail. But I want to emphasize,
they belong to the chicken, and it would not be a chicken without every
part or principle. These must all be present and answer roll call or we
do not have a complete chicken. Now I will try and give you the parts of
anatomy and the books that pertain to the same. You want some standard
author on descriptive anatomy in which you learn the form and places of
all bones, the place and uses of ligaments, muscles and all that belong
to the soft parts. Then from the descriptive anatomy you are conducted
into the dissecting room, in which you receive demonstrations, and are
shown all parts through which blood and other fluids are conducted. So
far you see you are in anatomy. From the demonstrator you are conducted
to another room or branch of anatomy called physiology, a knowledge of
which no Osteopath can do without and be a success. In that room you are
taught how the blood and other fluids of life are produced, and the
channels through which this fluid is conducted to the heart and lungs
for purity and other qualifying processes, previous to entering the
heart for general circulation to nourish and sustain the whole human
body. I want to insist and impress it upon your minds that this is as
much a part of anatomy as a wing is a part of a chicken. From this room
of anatomy you are conducted to the room of histology, in which the eye
is aided by powerful microscopes and made acquainted with the smallest
arteries of the human body, which in life are of the greatest known
importance, remembering that in the room of histology you are still
studying anatomy, and what that machinery can and does execute every
day, hour, and minute of life. From the histological room you are
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