The intelligent, conscientious Osteopath who dares to brave the scorn of
the stand-patter and use all the legitimate adjuncts of Osteopathy found
in physio-therapy, may do a great deal of good as a physician. I have
found many physicians willing to acknowledge this, and even recommend the
services of such an Osteopath when physio-therapy was indicated.
When a physician, however, meets a fellow who claims to have in his
Osteopathy a wonderful system, complete and all-sufficient to cope with
any and all diseases, and that his system is founded on a knowledge of the
relation and function of the various parts and organs of the body such as
no other school of therapeutics has ever been able to discover, then he
knows that he has met a man of the same mental and moral calibre as the
shyster in his own school. He knows he has met a fellow who is exploiting
a thing, that may be good in its way and place, as a graft. And he knows
that this grafter gets his wonderful cures largely as any other quack gets
his; the primary effects of his "scientific manipulations" are on the
minds of those treated.
The intelligent physician knows that the Osteopath got his boastedly
superior knowledge of anatomy mostly from the same text-books and same
class of cadavers that other physicians had to master if they graduated
from a reputable school. All that talk we have heard so much about the
Osteopaths being the "finest anatomists in the world" sounds plausible,
and is believed by the laity generally.
The quotation I gave above has been much used in Osteopathic literature
as coming from an eminent medical man. What foundation is there for such a
belief? The Osteopath _may_ be a good anatomist. He has about the same
opportunities to learn anatomy the medical student has. If he is a good
and conscientious student he may consider his anatomy of more importance
than does the medical student who is not expecting to do much surgery. If
he is a natural shyster and shirk he can get through a course in
Osteopathy and get his diploma, and this diploma may be about the only
proof he could ever give that he is a "superior anatomist."
Great stress has always been laid by Osteopaths upon the amount of study
and research done by their students on the cadaver. I want to give you
some specimens of the learning of the man (an M.D.) who presided over the
dissecting-room when I pursued my "profound research" on the "lateral
half." This great man, whose superior knowledge of anatomy, I presume,
induced by the wise management of the college to employ him as a
demonstrator, in an article written for the organ of the school expresses
himself thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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