=The General Treatment.=—A general treatment but accentuates the ignorance, in a majority of cases, of many so-termed osteopaths. It is a deplorable fact that there is a tendency among some osteopaths to give general treatments in every case presented. The only explanation of such a procedure that one can think of is a lack of conception as to what osteopathy really is. To give a general treatment in every case is not only actually detrimental to the patient but it is the height of folly on the osteopath’s part, for it gets him into a slovenly habit of procedure from both scientific and curative points of view, besides giving the outside world an impression that osteopathy is but little different from massage and Swedish movements instead of skillful, mechanical engineering of the human body. But a “general treatment” is not to be confused with definite attention to be a series of more or less interrelated lesions. The essential point is to normalize the body when and where distinctly indicated and after a skillful manner. A general treatment, broadly speaking, should be given only under three conditions: (1) Constitutional diseases that are to be treated symptomatically. (2) Certain anemic cases. (3) When one is ignorant of the real cause of the disease. Each of these conditions is self-evident why a general treatment should be given. A fourth might be added, for those individuals who think they are not getting value received unless they are treated from head to foot. Such patients are usually ignorant of the philosophy of osteopathy and it is the osteopath’s duty to teach them differently. The general treatment consists in stretching the spinal column from the atlas to the coccyx and relaxing all contracted muscles along both sides of the spinal column, besides giving special treatment to the cervical region, between the scapulæ, the splanchnics and internal and external rotation of the legs. It is no wonder that fake osteopaths do cure a case occasionally. They are quite certain to correct some disorder by pulling and hauling a patient around in such a manner. Still on the other hand they are very likely to do injury to the patient. Those who claim that no injury can come from osteopathic treatment are mistaken. One can injure a person by treatment if he is not careful. It does not stand to reason that the most delicately constructed mechanism should stand any amount of manipulation and misdirected force that may be given it.