Osteopathic Principles and Philosophy: a Contemporary View

Osteopathic medicine as we know it begins with Andrew Taylor Still, M.D. (1828 1917), who introduced its concepts in 1874. Still’s basic idea --that the human body was much like a machine, one that would function well if all its parts were in proper mechanical relationship --was unique compared to the medical thinking of the time. Doctor Still was a frontier doctor, and had trained like most physicians of his time – through apprenticeship, with some formal medical training added later. Still received a good deal of this apprenticeship training from his father, who was a physician as well as a minister in the Methodist Church. In addition to the private practice of medicine, Still also ran a farm and did mechanical work (he had received some formal schooling in mechanical engineering). Later in his career he served as a medical officer for the Union Army during the Civil war. He was also greatly influenced by the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Still was particularly impressed with Spencer’s ability to explain the concepts of cause and effect, structure and function, the holistic nature of organisms, and the interrelatedness of parts. 1