The student of any philosophy succeeds best by the more simple methods of reasoning. We reason for needed knowledge only, and should try and start out with as many known facts as possible. If we would reason on diseases of the organs of the head, neck, abdomen or pelvis, we must first know where these organs are, how and from what arteries the eye, ear, or tongue is fed.
THE OSTEOPATH AN ARTIST.
I believe you are taught anatomy in our school more thoroughly than any other school to date, because we want you to carry a living picture of all or any part of the body in your mind as a ready painter carries the picture of the face, scenery, beast or any thing he wishes to represent by his brush. He would only be a waster of time and paint and make a daub that would disgust any one who would employ him. We teach you anatomy in all its branches, that you may be able to have and keep a living picture before your mind all the time, so you can see all joints, ligaments, muscles, glands, arteries, veins, lymphatics, fascia superficial and deep, all organs, how they are fed, what they must do, and why they are expected to do a part, and what would follow in case that part was not done well and on time. I feel free to say to my students, keep your minds full of pictures of the normal body all the time, while treating the afflicted.
WHEN I BECAME AN OSTEOPATH.
In answer to the questions of how long have you been teaching this discovery, and what books are essential to the study? I will say I began to give reasons for my faith in the laws of life as given to men, worlds and beings by the God of nature, June, 1874, when I began to talk and propound questions to men of learning. I thought the sword and cannons of nature were pointed and trained upon our systems of drug doctoring.
DR. NEAL'S OPINION.
I asked Dr. J. M. Neal, of Edinburg, Scotland, for some information that I needed badly. He was a medical doctor of five years training, a man of much mental ability, who would give his opinions freely and to the point. I have been told by one or more Scotch M. D.'s that a Dr. John M. Neal, of Edinburg, was hung for murder. He was not hung while with me. The only thing made me doubt him being a Scotchman was he loved whiskey, and I had been told that the Scotch were a sensible people. John M. Neal said that "drugs was the bait of fools"; it was no science, and the system of drugs was only a trade, followed by the doctor for the money that could be obtained by it from the ignorant sick. He believed that nature was a law capable of vindicating its power all over the world.
THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS.
As this writing is for the information of the student I will continue the history by saying, that in the early days of Osteopathy I sought the opinions of the most learned, such as Dr. Schnebly, Professor of Language and History in the Baker University, Baldwin, Kansas; Dr. Dallas, a very learned M. D. of the Alopathic faith; Dr. F. A. Grove, well-known in Kirksville; J. B. Abbott, Indian agent, and many others of renown. Then back to the tombs of the dead, to better acquaint myself with the systems of medicine and the foundations of truth upon which they stood, if any. I will not worry your patience with a list of the names of authors that have written upon the subject of medicine, as remedial agents. I will use the word that the theologian often uses when asked whom Christ died for, the answer universally is, ALL. All intelligent medical writers say by word or inference that drugs or drugging is a system of blind guess work, and if we should let our opinions be governed by the marble lambs and other emblems of dead babies found in the cemeteries of the world, we would say that John M. Neal was possibly hung for murder, not through design, but through traditional ignorance of the power of nature to cure both old and young, by skillfully adjusting the engines of life so as to bring forth pure and healthy blood, the greatest known germicide, to one capable to reason who has the skill to conduct the vitalizing and protecting fluids to throat, lungs and all parts of the system, and ward off diseases as nature's God has indicated. With this faith and method of reasoning, I began to treat diseases by Osteopathy as an experimenter, and notwithstanding I obtained good results in all cases in diseases of climate and contagions, I hesitated for years to proclaim to the world that there was but little excuse for a master engineer to lose a child in cases of diphtheria, croup, measles, mumps, whooping cough, flux and other forms of summer diseases, peculiar to children. Neither was it necessary for the adult to die with diseases of summer, fall and winter. But at last I took my stand on this rock and my confidence in nature, where I have stood and fought the battles, and taken the enemy's flag in every engagement for the last twenty-five years.