Quacks and Grafters

by Anonymous

The intelligent, conscientious Osteopath who dares to brave the scorn of the stand-patter and use all the legitimate adjuncts of Osteopathy found in physio-therapy, may do a great deal of good as a physician. I have found many physicians willing to acknowledge this, and even recommend the services of such an Osteopath when physio-therapy was indicated.

When a physician, however, meets a fellow who claims to have in his Osteopathy a wonderful system, complete and all-sufficient to cope with any and all diseases, and that his system is founded on a knowledge of the relation and function of the various parts and organs of the body such as no other school of therapeutics has ever been able to discover, then he knows that he has met a man of the same mental and moral calibre as the shyster in his own school. He knows he has met a fellow who is exploiting a thing, that may be good in its way and place, as a graft. And he knows that this grafter gets his wonderful cures largely as any other quack gets his; the primary effects of his “scientific manipulations” are on the minds of those treated.

The intelligent physician knows that the Osteopath got his boastedly superior knowledge of anatomy mostly from the same text-books and same class of cadavers that other physicians had to master if they graduated from a reputable school. All that talk we have heard so much about the Osteopaths being the “finest anatomists in the world” sounds plausible, and is believed by the laity generally.

The quotation I gave above has been much used in Osteopathic literature as coming from an eminent medical man. What foundation is there for such a belief? The Osteopath may be a good anatomist. He has about the same opportunities to learn anatomy the medical student has. If he is a good and conscientious student he may consider his anatomy of more importance than does the medical student who is not expecting to do much surgery. If he is a natural shyster and shirk he can get through a course in Osteopathy and get his diploma, and this diploma may be about the only proof he could ever give that he is a “superior anatomist.”

Great stress has always been laid by Osteopaths upon the amount of study and research done by their students on the cadaver. I want to give you some specimens of the learning of the man (an M.D.) who presided over the dissecting-room when I pursued my “profound research” on the “lateral half.” This great man, whose superior knowledge of anatomy, I presume, induced by the wise management of the college to employ him as a demonstrator, in an article written for the organ of the school expresses himself thus:

“It is needless to say that the first impression of an M. D. would not be favorable to Osteopathy, because he has spent years fixing in his mind that if you had a bad case of torticollis not to touch it, but give a man morphine or something of the same character with an external blister or hot application and in a week or ten days he would be all right. In the meanwhile watch the patient’s general health, relieve the induced constipation by suitable means and rearrange what he has disarranged in his treatment. On the other hand, let the Osteopath get hold of this patient, and with his vast and we might say perfect knowledge of anatomy, he at once, with no other tools than his hands, inhibits the nerves supplying the affected parts, and in five minutes the patient can freely move his head and shoulders, entirely relieved from pain. Would not the medical man be angry? Would he not feel like wiping off the earth with all the Osteopaths? Doctor, with your medical education a course in Osteopathy would teach you that it is not necessary to subject your patients to myxedema by removing the thyroid gland to cure goitre. You would not have to lie awake nights studying means to stop one of those troublesome bowel complaints in children, nor to insist upon the enforced diet in chronic diarrhea, and a thousand other things which are purely physiological and are not done by any magical presto change, but by methods which are perfectly rational if you will only listen long enough to have them explained to you. I will agree that at first impression all methods look alike to the medical man, but when explained by an intelligent teacher they will bring their just reward.”

Gentlemen of the medical profession, study the above carefully—punctuation, composition, profound wisdom and all. Surely you did not read it when it was given to the world a few years ago, or you would all have been converted to Osteopathy then, and the medical profession left desolate. We have heard many bad things of medical men, but never (until we learned it from one who was big-brained enough to accept Osteopathy when its great truths dawned upon him) did we know that you are so dull of intellect that it takes you “years to fix in your minds that if you had a bad case of torticollis not to touch it but to give a man morphine.”

And how pleased Osteopaths are to learn from this scholar that the Osteopath can “take hold” of a case of torticollis, “and with his vast and we might say perfect knowledge of anatomy” inhibit the nerves and have the man cured in five minutes. We were glad to learn this great truth from this learned ex-M.D., as we never should have known, otherwise, that Osteopathy is so potent.

I have had cases of torticollis in my practice, and thought I had done well if after a half hour of hard work massaging contracted muscles I had benefited the case.

And note the relevancy of these questions, “Would not the medical man be angry? Would he not feel like wiping off the earth all the Osteopaths?” Gentlemen, can you explain your ex-brother’s meaning here? Surely you are not all so hard-hearted that you would be angry because a poor wry-necked fellow had been cured in five minutes.