Osteopathic Congress

Osteopaths like to make signs--on office windows, in directories, on professional cards. Signs are the best means of showing the public that a new sort of medical practice has set itself staunchly up in U. S. life, and osteopaths have become skilled in their advertising use. But the finest sign that any osteopath had theretofore devised was a bronze one exposed at Kirksville, Mo., last week. It was fixed to a great boulder and lay hid under a cloth while several hundred U. S. osteopaths, at Kirksville for their 32nd convention, massed themselves before it. Two children dragged at the drape. Beholders viewed with emotion cast phrases commemorating the 100th birth anniversary of their school's founder, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still.

Dr. Still (he was originally an orthodox, allopathic physician), after serving in the Civil War, developed the principles of osteopathy. Basic is his theory that health persists only when the joints and other skeletal articulations function normally. This is especially important for the ribs, spine, pelvis. If the bones are in proper relation, then flesh, nerves and other parts of the anatomy hung on to them, function properly and prevent the invasion of disease. Inversely, to cure disease, the doctor must manipulate the bones into natural position. Hence the fundamental osteopathic principle: "Find the lesion, adjust it, and let it alone." Dr. Still established his theories as a new school of medicine in 1874. He died only eleven years ago, at Kirksville.

His first disciples included thoughtful men puzzled by the frequent inefficacies of regular medicine, which considered the food and drugs absorbed by the body all important for health and cure. But more numerous were the hodgepodge who found in uncritical osteopathy a quick means of earning easy money as "doctors." Osteopathy stirred the opposition of regular medicine, and osteopathy fought with club and clout.

Its members were able guerrillas for Dr. Still. His school has won a constantly harried and guarded reputation. Allopathy has even recognized some of its teachings, as physical therapeutics. Chief cause for the comity (it remains loosely bound) has been osteopathy's sensible chasing of the raggletoggle out of its membership. Osteopathic schools from Kirksville to Boston now require four years of medical training. Courses are identically those of regular schools. However, instead of Materia Medica, one studies Principles and Practice of Osteopathy.

All the states permit osteopaths to practice under license.

Thus recognized, the osteopaths at the Kirksville convention last week had little to rage about. They decided to fight this coming year for the right of a citizen to have the care of a licensed osteopath, if he wants one, when he becomes a patient in any hospital or other public welfare institution supported by taxes or receiving state aid. They elected as their next president Dr. D. L. Clark of Denver; to succeed Dr. George V. Webster of Carthage. N. Y.

Next meeting place of the osteopaths is Des Moines.