The story of the origin of Osteopathy is romantic enough to appeal to the fancy of impressionists. It is almost as romantic as the finding of the mysterious stones by the immortal Joe Smith. In this story is embodied the life history of an old-time doctor and pioneer hero in his restless migrations about the frontiers of Kansas and Missouri. His thrilling experiences in the days of border wars and through the Civil War are narrated, and how the germ of the idea of the true cause and cure of disease was planted in his mind by the remark of a comrade as the two lay concealed in a thicket for days to escape border ruffians. Then, later, how the almost simultaneous death of two or three beloved children, whom all his medical learning and that of other doctors he had summoned had been powerless to save, had caused him to renounce forever the belief that drugs could cure disease. He believed Nature had a true system, and for this he began a patient search. He wandered here and there, almost in the condition of the religious reformers of old, who "wandered up and down clad in sheep-skins and goat-hides, of whom the world was not worthy." In the name of suffering humanity he desecrated the grave of poor Lo, that he might read from his red bones some clue to the secret. One Osteopathic journal claims to tell authentically how Still was led to the discovery of the "great truth." It states that by accidentally curing a case of asthma by "fooling with the bones of the chest," he was led to the belief that bones out of normal position cause disease. Still himself tells a rather different story in a popular magazine posing of late years as a public educator in matters of therapeutics. In this magazine Still tells how he discovered the principles of Osteopathy by curing a terrible headache resting the back of his neck across a swing made of his father's plowlines, and next by writhing on his back across a log to relieve the pain of dysentery. Accidentally the "lesion" was corrected, or the proper center "inhibited," and his headache and flux immediately cured. You can take your choice of these various versions of the wonderful discovery. Ever since Osteopathy began to attract attention, and people began to inquire "What is it?" its leading promoters have vied with each other in trying to construct a good definition for their "great new science." Here are some of the definitions: "Osteopathy is the science of drugless healing." For a genuine "lesion" Osteopath that would not do at all. It is too broad and gives too much scope to the physicians who would do more than "pull bones."