Osteopathy

History

“The doctor of the future will give little medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” Thomas A. Edison

Although Thomas Edison talks (above) about the ‘doctor of the future’, manual medicine has a history dating back to the beginnings of human civilization. Accounts are found from the Egyptians, the Chinese, and in the writing of Hippocrates — the founder of Western medicine.

Osteopathy as a system of manual medicine and health care was founded by the American physician Andrew Still (1828 - 1917). Osteopathy’s principles involve the reciprocal relationship between the body’s structure (anatomy) e.g. muscles, bones and joints, and the body’s functions (physiology) e.g. the viscera and processes. This can be appreciated by looking at the nervous system in close proximity to the spine itself.