Dr. Still would have us believe that Osteopathy is something of a cure-all, and that its adoption makes the use of drugs unnecessary, but all Osteopaths do not make this claim. Dr. George V. Webster, D.O., says: "Osteopathy is not a cure-all. There are disorders that are incurable." This is encouraging, because we now know that if a disease is incurable Osteopathy cannot cure it! Dr. Webster says that "there are diseases needing surgical attention," that in some cases an anesthetic is necessary, that a parasite requires an antiseptic, and that a poison requires an antidote. Thus he has found that drugs have some uses, at least. In one place Dr. Webster says that Osteopathy is not a cure-all, and in another we find him saying, "The application of osteopathic principles to meet the problems of bodily disorder has demonstrated their efficiency in practically all diseases"! Dr. Still himself says, "You may say there are some failures. Yes, who would not expect it? Perhaps the Osteopath is not able to apply the knowledge he should have gained before being granted a diploma from his osteopathic school."
And thus, all through the Osteopath literature there is an inference that bone manipulation cures everything, although it admits that it has not always done so. This is the weak, fatally weak, spot in Osteopathy. It is the old story of the over-enthusiastic specialist who thinks that the sun rises and sets on his pet theory. Show a child a watch, and all it sees and understands is that it is wound up and that the hands move around. If the watch gets out of order the child tries to wind it up again—that is all it knows. It does not know that inside the case are hundreds of delicately arranged parts that are adjusted to a nicety. It does not know that some of these parts may be worn out from over-use, or are missing, or broken, or that they need cleaning. Likewise, when the Osteopath sees a body suffering from some disorder, he usually sees only the blood vessels and nerves, and he decides at once that one or more of them is being squeezed by a misadjustment of some bone or muscle. He looks on the spinal column as the backbone of the human structure, which is of course true, and surmises that if anything is wrong it must have originated in the spinal cord, which is not necessarily true. If it is indigestion, or a disease of the kidney, or what not, he thinks that by turning one of the keys on the spinal cord it will unlock the necessary drug and let it flow to the disordered part. He wears a pair of glasses on which is written the word "Osteopathy," and when he looks he sees nothing but Osteopathy. Now, as a matter of fact, he is right in many cases. He will cure when all the doctors in the world might not even relieve. He has a great truth. He holds the key that unlocks the door to many a mystery, and it is a key that should be in common use, by all doctors. Where the regular physician would perhaps drug his patient to death, the Osteopath might cure him with a few simple treatments. Take, for example, a headache. Now, a headache is a symptom, not a disease. It is a sign that something is going wrong. It is a sign that there is either too much blood in the head, or not enough, usually the former. In either case, it is probable that there is some abnormal pressure on some blood-vessel or nerve, and that if that pressure could be released the headache would disappear. Just examine a model of the spinal cord sometime and see what a complicated structure it is, with all the little nerves, blood vessels and muscles so intricately interwoven between its many parts. We are all prone to get in certain habits. We learn to read in a certain posture, and to write, and to lie down, and to walk, and to sit, and in the course of years it would be strange if one or more of our thousands of parts did not get into an abnormal position so as to compress or squeeze some of the delicately arranged nerves or blood channels, thus preventing freedom of passage. Such a condition might set up congestion and inflammation, and it is likely to affect seriously some distant organ. By readjusting the bones of the neck, shoulder, back or spinal cord, we relieve that pressure and thereby cure the disorder. There can be no doubt of all this, and every regular physician ought to know it and to practice it, but they don't and won't. Furthermore, they won't refer the patient to an Osteopath. Professional jealousy!
It is really a shame that there cannot be some kind of a union of the various isms, ologies and athies. Certainly all Osteopaths should be regularly admitted physicians and surgeons. If they could be broad enough for that, they would soon put the old-school physicians out of business.
In conclusion, Osteopathy is much overestimated by some, and much underestimated by many. It will do good to most anybody, and harm to nobody. It will cure thousands of cases that the regular physicians cannot cure; but, on the other hand, there are thousands of cases that Osteopathy should not attempt to cure without the aid of the modern school of physicians and surgeons.
Phrenology
The word phrenology comes from the Greek word phren, meaning the mind, and logus, meaning science—the science of the mind. The alleged science rests upon these principles: (1) The brain is the organ of the mind; (2) the mind may be divided into a certain number of faculties independent of one another; (3) each faculty resides in a definite region of the brain; (4) the size of each region is the true measure of the intellectual power of the organ therein residing. The phrenologist examines the outside of the skull, and, by measuring the various bumps and indentations thereon, claims to be able to tell how much brains are within and just what faculties are concealed under each and every portion of the skull. They claim to take into consideration various other things, such as the texture of the hair, the lung power, the brilliancy of the eye, the color of the skin, the general poise and shape of the head, and so on, but phrenology really means bumpology or craniology.
The real fathers of the theory are Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, although we find suggestions of it in the writings of some of the ancients, notably those of Aristotle and Pythagoras, and even so far back as the ancient Egyptians. Aristotle believed the brain to be a complex organ, but held that the small head was the standard of perfection—"Little head, little wit; big head not a bit." (For a lengthy treatise on phrenology and its history, see Enc. Britannica.)