Osteopathy has been defined as “that science or system of healing which emphasizes, (a) the diagnosis of disease by physical methods with the view of discovering, not the symptoms but the cause of disease in connection with misplacements of tissue, obstruction of the fluids and interference with the forces of the organism; (b) the treatment of disease by scientific manipulations in connection with which the operating physician mechanically uses and applies the inherent resources of the organism to overcome disease and establish health, either by removing or correcting mechanical disorders and thus permitting nature to recuperate the diseased parts, or by producing and establishing antitoxic and antiseptic conditions to counteract toxic and septic conditions of the organism or its parts; (c) the application of mechanical and operative surgery in setting fractures or dislocated bones, repairing lacerations and removing abnormal tissue growths or tissue elements when these become dangerous to organic life.”[1] In a word, osteopathy is adjustment and the osteopath is an anatomical engineer who knows what is wrong and has the ability to correct it. Dr. Still changed diagnosis from guess work to fact and on it his fame may well stand, for when the cause of the disease was found, treatment was easy. He has ever emphasized the necessity of thorough examination and correct diagnosis. All treatment must be based on the definite, specific object to accomplish certain definite, specific things. “Osteopathy would expound and apply the true philosophy of manipulation. While the hands are used, it is not this alone and chiefly that distinguishes its method of operation, but the idea and purpose that lie behind manipulation.”[2] All manipulators are not osteopaths any more than all butchers are surgeons. The need for deep study of the subject is apparent from this characteristic statement of Dr. Still’s: “Osteopathy is a science; not what we know of it, but the subject we are working is deep as eternity. We know but little of it. I have worked and worried here in Kirksville for twenty-two long years, and I intend to study for twenty-three thousand years yet.”[3] This brings us to the point of the relations of osteopathy with other manipulative forms of treatment. They are not many, for Gerdine,[4] in closing a long article on the “Physiological Effects of Mechanical Therapeutics” says: “I have striven to show that in no way is Osteopathy similar to massage either in theory or practice if Osteopathy is conceived of, according to its founder, Dr. A. T. Still, as a system of healing in which a definite lesion in form of a bony displacement is the causative factor and a removal of the same, the curative factor in disease.” The fact that use is made of the hands to the extent it is by both osteopaths and masseurs or Swedish movement operators gives rise to the mistaken idea of similarity in treatment.