ATDDTA(11) Take The Last Train To Kirksville [309:28-31]

[Keith]

The practice of osteopathic medicine began in the United States in  
1874. The term "osteopathy" was coined by **Andrew Taylor Still,  
M.D.**, an allopathically-trained physician who was born in 1828 in  
Virginia. Still was a free state leader who lived near Baldwin City,  
Kansas at the time of the American Civil War, and it was here he  
developed the practice of osteopathy.[1] Still was trained by  
apprenticeship, as were most physicians of the day, and was employed  
as an army doctor during the American Civil War in the U.S. Army. The  
horrors of battlefield injury and the subsequent death of his wife  
and several children from infectious diseases left him totally  
disillusioned with the traditional practice of medicine. Still  
perceived the medical practices of his day to be ineffective, even  
barbaric. Troubled by what he saw as problems in the medical  
profession, Still founded osteopathic practice. Using an alternative  
philosophical approach, he opposed the use of drugs and surgery as  
remedial agents, reserving their use for such cases as being the cure  
for the condition, such as an antidote for a poison or amputation for  
gangrene. He saw the human body as being capable of curing itself,  
and the duty of the physician to remove any impediments to the  
healthy function of each person. He promoted healthy lifestyle,  
nutrition, abstinence from alcohol and drugs, and used manipulative  
techniques to improve physiological function.

Still named his new school of medicine "osteopathy", reasoning that  
"the bone, osteon, was the starting point from which [he] was to  
ascertain the cause of pathological conditions." The object of  
osteopathy was to "improve upon the present systems of surgery,  
midwifery, and the treatment of general diseases."[citation needed]  
Its scientific foundation was the discipline of anatomy. Its  
philosophy was based on the understanding of the integration between  
body, mind and spirit, the interrelatedness of structure and  
function, and the ability of the body to heal itself when  
mechanically sound. Osteopathic treatment must be a rational  
application of these principles in comprehensive patient care with a  
focus on the neuromusculoskeletal system as an integral part of  
health and disease processes. Over time he and his students and  
faculty developed a complete medical school curriculum which included  
a series of specialized physical treatments, now called Osteopathic  
Manipulative Treatment (OMT). Still founded the **American School of  
Osteopathy** (now the Andrew Taylor Still University, Kirksville  
College of Osteopathic Medicine) in **Kirksville, Missouri**, for the  
teaching of osteopathic medicine on May 10, 1892. While the state of  
Missouri, recognizing the equivalency of the curriculum, was willing  
to grant him a charter for awarding the M.D. degree, he remained  
dissatisfied with the limitations of allopathic medicine and instead  
chose to retain the distinction of the D.O. degree.

In the late 1800s Still taught that "dis-ease" was caused when bones  
were out of place and disrupted the flow of blood or the flow of  
nervous impulses; he therefore concluded that one could cure diseases  
by manipulating bones to restore the interrupted flow. Still  
stimulated his students to investigate these postulates. Research  
began in the 1890s at Kirksville and has continued there and at other  
osteopathic institutions ever since. The A.T. Still Research  
Institute was founded in 1913 and Louisa Burns, D.O. and others  
developed a rigorous series of scientific investigations of the  
relationships between musculoskeletal dysfunctions and health and  
disease. Still's critics point out that he never personally ran any  
controlled experiments to test his hypothesis; his supporters point  
out that many of Still's writings are philosophical rather than  
scientific in nature. He questioned the drug practices of his day and  
regarded surgery as a last resort. As medical science developed,  
osteopathic medicine gradually incorporated all its proven theories  
and practices.

By the 1960s, osteopathic medicine had become integrated into the  
American mainstream, and the reliance on manipulative therapies had  
fallen into less common usage. The osteopathic profession has evolved  
independently outside the US, where it has remained essentially a  
drug free system based on manipulative techniques - a scope of  
practice similar to chiropractors. Chiropractic is a distinct  
manipulative profession that originated around 1895 in the US. The  
ancient Greek "father of medicine", Hippocrates, is said to have  
spoken highly of manual and manipulative therapies for a range of  
conditions.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy