All About Osteopathy

Definition of osteopathy

In 1874, Dr. Andrew T. Still defined osteopathy as natural medicine. He used the quality of his palpation to assess and treat his patients. The originality of his practice lay in the fact that he focused on restoring health rather than merely combating the symptoms of the disease.

The therapeutic aim of osteopathy is to restore movement and function to the mechanisms that keep the body healthy. To achieve this, it is important to assess and treat the causes of symptoms, pain and dysfunction.

Osteopathy is a science, an art of palpation and a rigorous clinical methodology based on precise palpation aimed at freeing the body's various tissues from their restrictions, blockages and compressions to perform their natural functions.

The aim of professional osteopathy is to restore movement to the body's structures and functions (bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons, organs, viscera, cranial sutures, etc.). Among other things, this improves blood and lymph circulation and promotes metabolic exchange between all the body's systems, nerve function and vascularization of the digestive, pulmonary, cardiac, reproductive, elimination, cerebral dynamics and many other body functions. To achieve this, the patient is always treated as a whole.

The concepts and principles enunciated by Andrew T. Still are still alive and well and can be applied to the development of clinical methodology. These principles form the basis of our teaching.

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The Origins of Osteopathy

It was in the United States in the 19th century, that the original principles, concepts and methods of osteopathic assessment and manual care were developed by Dr. Andrew T. Still. Still. Born in Virginia in 1828, he studied medicine in Kansas City, where he acquired an excellent knowledge of anatomy and physiology. With an inquisitive and rational mind, he quickly established relationships between structural disorder, functional disorder and disease. Devoted to his patients, Dr. Still was devastated in 1864 by the loss of his wife, three of his children and many of his patients to a meningitis epidemic. This event was decisive in his realization of the limitations of conventional medicine and drugs. He then stopped practicing to study and seek other ways of relieving his patients more effectively.

During the Civil War, his experience as a physician and anatomist enabled him to perform reconstructive surgery. After 10 years of research, he returned to his patients with a new way of looking at care, which led him to officially create, on June 22, 1874, the term "osteopathy" based on concepts and principles that are still relevant today and represent the foundations of traditional manual osteopathy. By this time, Dr. Still had come to understand that the key to health lies in the balance of the skeletal framework, which is responsible for the harmony of the nervous, muscular, facial and circulatory systems. He also recognized that the health of the organs and the musculoskeletal system were interrelated and interactive. He even postulated that "structure governs function". From this postulate, he eventually put forward the main principles underpinning osteopathic clinical methodology and therapeutic specificity. They can be summed up as follows:

1. Structure and function are linked;
2. The body is a functional unit;
3. The role of the artery is absolute;
4. The body has its own capacity for self-regulation, defense and recovery.

In 1892, Dr. Still founded The American School of Osteopathy, the first school of osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri, which is now a university, the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. This teaching soon became very popular, and Dr. Still was fortunate enough to teach over 5,000 students in his lifetime.

In 1917, Osteopathy took root in Europe thanks to Dr. John Martin Littlejohn, D.O., a student of Dr. Still. He founded the British School of Osteopathy, the first school of osteopathy in England. The European School of Osteopathy in Maidstone and other institutions have enabled English osteopathy to occupy an important place in the English healthcare system. Today, the major schools are affiliated with universities.

In France, traces have been found of a school and a French-language book written in 1913. Dr. Major Stirling, D.O., settled in France and taught a group of doctors. Osteopathy really took off in the 1960s. The first course in Osteopathy applied to the cranial sphere was given in Paris in 1965, with Thomas Schooley, D.O., Harold I. Magoun, D.O., and Viola M. Frymann, D.O., all students of William Garner Sutherland, D.O.

Two famous French osteopaths were present: Francis Peyralade, D.O., and Bernard Barillon, D.O. The first French colleges were the roots of other institutions in Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany. French osteopathy is highly respected and is expressed primarily in the evolution of this medicine in the visceral sphere with Jean-Pierre Barral, D.O., Jacques Weischenk, D.O., René Briend, D.O.

In the United States, Osteopathy evolved over the years towards the practice of medicine and surgery, abandoning traditional Osteopathy based on palpation and manual therapeutic methods. However, the American Academy of Osteopathy has made every effort to preserve Osteopathy's original philosophy and potential. Osteopathic medicine is currently taught at 15 universities in the United States.