By Laurie Melrose-Doering, Osteopath & Applied Kinesiologist
I recently sifted through some old archives replete with books on osteopathy, applied kinesiology, and herbal medicine that are kept at the clinic in New Malden. Some of these books have passed through three generations of New Malden, Kingston, and Wimbledon osteopaths and are almost family heirlooms. Many are now impossible to buy.
One of the works I stumbled into was a pamphlet by Wilfrid A. Streeter, one of the early pioneers of osteopathy in Europe. Wilfrid treated John Melrose in the late 1940s. And John, my grandfather, used to say that he credited Wilfrid for still being alive. John Melrose was so enamoured by what he had experienced that he decided to give up his career and move from Scotland to London to study osteopathy himself.
I have typed up Wilfrid Streeter’s long article “Osteopathy – A Brief Discussion of its Principles and Practice” below. Although it is a very long read and goes into great depth, I recommend it if you are interested in learning more about the (early) principles of osteopathy from one of the visionaries that shaped it.
Osteopaths today cannot claim all that Wilfrid Streeter outlined, and must not be the first port of call for most conditions suggested by him. However, reading Streeter’s article, you can appreciate the benefits of osteopathy to the patient’s overall wellbeing.
Much has changed since this text was published in 1910, after all, this work appeared when tuberculosis, not cancer, was the scourge and fear of the population. Nonetheless, I believe Streeter’s article provides a valuable insight into what osteopathy is and the remarkable ways in which it can affect the body.
>>So much mis-information has been given about osteopathy by people who know little or nothing about it, that the following explanation may be of benefit to those interested in the prevention and cure of disease.
Definition: Osteopathy is a system of healing, using manipulation for the purpose of correcting structural or mechanical defects of the spine, or other parts of the body, and thus relieving irritation and pressure upon nerves and blood vessels, and liberating the natural remedial forces within the body. Diet, hygiene, exercise, hydrotherapy and other sane natural methods are also employed, and drugs are used internally to kill parasites such as tapeworm, hookworm, etc. Briefly, osteopathy means re-adjustment of the human machine.
To better understand this definition we must investigate further.
To begin with, osteopathy was first discovered and built up into a system of therapeutics about fifty years ago by Dr. A. T. Still, a medical physician and surgeon of about thirty years’ practice and wide experience. The last twenty years shows a remarkable growth, it having been legally recognized by every State in the Union in spite of strong opposition. It has won recognition on its merits alone, and has been supported in court by the testimony of thousands of patients who have been cured or greatly benefited by its treatment after all other methods had failed.
The course of study required to make a doctor of osteopathy (D.O.) is four years of nine months each, during all of which time the human body is studied most thoroughly, and a practical application made of the knowledge of its mechanical structure and vital functions. Everything taught in the medical schools is taught in the osteopathic schools except internal medicine, for which is substituted our own principles and practice.
No one, then, either physician or layman who has not properly studied and practiced osteopathy is competent to give an intelligent opinion on the subject, or to say what it can or cannot do, for experience has proven that it is doing an immense amount of good in the matter of curing acute and chronic diseases of all kinds, especially chronic cases that have not obtained the desired relief under other treatment.
A system of healing which has made such rapid, substantial progress in such a comparatively short time must be based upon sound principles. Let us see if it appeals to reason.
The basic principle of osteopathy may be briefly stated as follows: The human body is a vital, self-sustaining machine, depending for its proper functioning upon proper structure, viz.: proper position and relations of all its working parts, and a free and unobstructed flow of blood and nerve force to every organ and tissue of the body. Furthermore, it has the power to manufacture within its own laboratories (from the food, water and air takin in) all the necessary secretions, ferments, chemicals, blood and nerve force in proper proportions to maintain life and health, just so long as the machine is mechanically correct and each part is doing its work properly.
We have compared the body to a machine; it is a wonderfully delicate and complex machine, and, like any other mechanism under work and strain, it is liable to get out of adjustment, and when so it cannot do its work properly. In other words, ‘perverted structure causes perverted function.’ The perverted or abnormal structures is the cause of most diseases; the abnormal functions, such as indigestion, pain, etc., are merely symptoms. While other schools are treating mostly symptoms and ignoring important causes, osteopathy goes behind the symptoms, finds and removes the cause, whereupon the symptoms or effects naturally disappear.
A symptom like pain, for example, can be temporarily relieved by such drugs as opiates or narcotics, but the pain will persist in returning again and again until the cause is removed. This accounts for the long continued suffering of chronic cases, and also accounts for the great success of osteopathy in curing these cases by removing the chronic cause. In fact, the early success and friendly recognition of osteopathy was won through the benefits and cures of old chronic cases, many of which had been pronounced hopeless or incurable by the medical schools.
The body is much more than a mere machine, however, inasmuch as it is vital and self-sustaining, but the mechanical aspect is a factor of great importance that has too long been overlooked; for the vital actions depend upon mechanical integrity.
The ideal condition of health is possible only when there is a normal blood supply and normal nerve supply to every organ and part of the body, for the proper function of every part depends upon these two all-important factors. For instance, if the stomach is not getting a normal circulation of blood, it is weakened from lack of nourishment, its glands cannot properly make gastric juice, the food then is not properly digested, and consequently the whole system suffers.
Realizing that the different glands of the body manufacture all necessary fluids for the bodily needs, osteopathy claims that drugs have no place in the system; that they are foreign elements which the system makes every effort to throw off as soon as possible, but always with more or less damage to delicate tissues and organs, like the kidneys especially, which have to bear the burden of straining out the impurities from the blood.
It should not be considered so remarkable that osteopathy cures diseases without the use of drugs. Our Wise Creator must have made us very badly indeed if we have to be always “taking something” of doubtful action to improve on nature. We should have more respect for His wisdom and give nature a chance by not complicating matters. In fact, modern medical men admit that drugs do not cure diseases, but merely palliate the symptoms, and they are giving less and less drugs.
Prominent medical authorities from time to time make statements which cast much doubt upon the advisability of giving medicines as, for instance, the famous Dr. Osler, the “Dean of American medicine,” said, that “sensible doctors have reached the conclusion that typhoid fever is not a disease to be treated with medicine.”
Dr. Arthur D. Bevan, of Chicago, says: “Drug treatment is useless in cases of pneumonia.” Sir Frederick Treves, once physician to the King of England, in a speech at the opening of the London Hospital, said he believed “the time is not far distant when people will leave off the extraordinary habit of taking medicine when they are sick?” These and similar statements coming from authorities seem to indicate that drug practices is still upon a doubtful basis.
Advanced doctors do not give medicine at all in many cases, realizing that they only complicate matters. Osteopathy can do this much at least, and can do a great deal more in assisting nature by removing any interference to the action of nature’s forces within the body. Nature cures, and always stands ready to cure, when the obstructions to her forces are removed. It is the work of the osteopath to remove such obstructions.
Now let us see how these obstructions may occur and how diseases are caused by mechanical derangements, and how, through manipulation, they are cured by mechanical readjustment which removes pressure from nerves and blood vessels and allows free action of the natural forces.
The spine is a wonderfully clever and complex structure. Commonly called the backbone; it is really made up of many bones called vertebrae. Twenty-four of these are set one upon the other like a column of blocks.
The spinal column is practically the foundation of the whole body and upon its integrity depends the health and strength of every individual.
If the spine were merely a column of solid, bony blocks, its function would be simplified into merely giving mechanical support to the body. But these blocks are of irregular shapes, hollow in part, and being set upon each other these hollows form a continuous tube or canal which contains the extremely delicate and vitally important structure called the spinal cord.
Hence, the spine must not only support the body in erect position, carry the physical burdens and strains of life, allowing perfect freedom of movements in every direction, such as bending, twisting, etc., but through all this it must absolutely protect the sensitive spinal cord and spinal nerves which branch from it, and not subject them to any abnormal pressure or irritation.
This spinal cord is made up of nerve-tissue, viz.: cells and fibres, and is really an extension of the brain substance. In this cord at different levels are important nerve centres whose location and functions have long since been discovered by investigators in anatomy and physiology.
These spinal centres regulate the action of the internal organs, such as heart, stomach, bowels, etc. While under control of the brain, they are also automatic and do their work voluntarily without any effort on the part of the will. They also regulate the circulation and distribution of blood throughout the body.
The spinal cord may well be compared to a telephone cable containing many bundles of wire which branch off along the line to different districts, and finally connect with the terminal instruments. The spinal nerve centres may be compared to relay stations as they occur along telephone lines. The controlling nerve centres are in the brain, which may be called the dynamo of nerve energy.
The energy is carried along nerve fibres (wires) down the cord to the nerve centres (relay stations), where the fibres branch off and leave the cord as part of a spinal nerve to be distributed to some muscle or internal organ or skin, according to the kind of nerve it may be. There are several different kinds of nerve fibres, named according to their function, such as motor nerves governing motion, sensory nerves governing sensation, secretory nerves governing secretion, and so on. Also, the nerves of special sense, as sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch.
There are thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves, each containing many fibres which are given off from the cord and pass out of the spine, through small openings in the complicated joints between the vertebrae; also there are arteries and veins passing in and out through these openings to nourish the fibres, cells and centres in the cord. These openings are thus completely filled.
Now we are beginning to see how the slightest displacement of one or more vertebrae may cause far-reaching disturbance by causing pressure upon spinal nerves, either irritating them and increasing their action, or, if the pressure is severe enough, completely paralyzing them.
Almost everyone has experienced the sensation of the leg or foot “going to sleep,” and when attempting to stand upon that foot has found it completely powerless. This is a form of “pressure paralysis” resulting from pressure upon the sciatic nerve, and illustrates the possible result of pressure upon a nerve.
These displacements of vertebrae are called lesions, and the osteopathic school is the only one which has paid any attention to these defects as causes of disease. Such lesions of the spine also interfere with the free circulation of blood to and from the sensitive nerve centres within the cord, and the importance of the work of these centres demands that they must have a normal supply of nourished blood.
If these centres are not properly nourished their action is feeble, the impulses they send out are impaired and the particular organs which they control become weak and fail to do their work properly. The failure of the organs to work properly is a symptom or effect of an underlying disease.
Now we begin to see the advantage of the osteopathic method of reasoning from effect back to cause, and the importance of spinal treatment to remove causes rather than treat symptoms.
The spine, furthermore, is wrapped and banded and braced at every joint with many ligaments, and the whole column held erect and strengthened by several layers of muscles. Through all these ligaments and muscles is woven a network of nerves and blood vessels, which fact brings to light another important point in favor of the mechanical theory of the cause of disease, viz.: that contraction or hardening of the ligaments and deep muscles of the spine causes interference with spinal nerves, and also obstructs circulation to the spinal cord by direct pressure upon the soft blood vessels just as surely as pressure upon a soft rubber tube will affect the flow of fluid through it.
These are some of the reasons why so much attention and so much treatment is given to the spine, for to the trained eyes and fingers of the osteopath the human spine is practically a barometer, wherein many signs can be read indicating the patient’s condition, and even the advance signs pointing to probable future disorders. This may sound like magic to the uninitiated, but there is no magic in osteopathy. Nature supplies the magic; osteopathy is simply common sense applied to all that is known of advanced anatomy, physiology and pathology.
Another interesting fact that has been touched upon but is not generally known is that the circulation and distribution of blood is under the control of certain nerves. The amount of blood required in different parts of the body at different times varies according to the amount of work being done in that part.
We should realize by this time that no part of the body can work properly without a normal supply of blood; for example, the stomach when digesting a meal demands more blood than when at rest, and it always gets an extra supply if the nerve centres are acting and reacting properly; that is, if there is no obstruction to their action.
The nerves which thus control the circulation are called the vasomotor (vessel mover) nerves, and these are governed by vaso-motor centres in the spinal cord and sympathetic nervous system. These centres react according to the stimulation or “messages” received by them from the organs with which they are connected by nerves. These vaso-motor nerves have the power of dilating and contracting the calibre of the blood vessels, and thereby allowing more or less blood to flow through them. Irritation of these vaso-motor nerves disturbs the balance of circulation in the parts controlled by them. Too much blood in a part is congestion or inflammation, and can be seen in the tissues of the throat during tonsillitis or sore throat.
It is generally admitted that osteopathy is “good for the nerves,” and so it is excellent for nervous diseases; but why stop there? Since we have learned that the nerves control the circulation we can see how it must be good for the circulation, and further, with the same reasoning, since we know that nerves also control every vital process and action of the body, we can see that osteopathy is good for the whole body. Experience has proven that this is true.
The person who is not familiar with the principles of osteopathy as applied to anatomy and physiology, cannot understand why so much attention should be given to spinal examination and treatment, but the reader should by this time begin to realize that there is close connection between the conditions of the spine and other parts of the body, since the nerves which leave the spine govern practically all the voluntary muscles, and these nerves are also closely connected at the spine with sympathetic nerves, which govern the involuntary action of the internal organs.
The osteopathic physician is the only one who has been properly educated to treat the spine. His trained sense of touch acquired by practice enables him to discover the slightest departure from normal structure. It is an osteopathic axiom that internal disorders are reflected in the spinal condition, and, vice versa, spinal conditions affect distant parts through nerve connections.
Patients who have suffered for years from some chronic ailment have never imagine that there was anything wrong with their spines, and have never attributed their troubles to a mechanical disturbance upsetting nerve action and circulation somewhere. The reason is that they have never been properly examined. On the other hand, there are many who can trace the beginning of their troubles to some spinal or other injury, such as a fall, strain or blow. In many cases of apparently obscure origin, osteopathy uncovers a history of some such injury long forgotten or overlooked.
The older schools of medicine have not paid sufficient attention to these conditions, and while they are searching the earth, air and sky for possible causes of disease, osteopathy, by taking a practical point of view, has found within the body itself the actual causes for most of its troubles, and at the same time has found that the body cures itself when those causes are removed. Herein lies the reason for the success of osteopathy. It simplifies disease and puts the healing art upon a practical working basis. This is scientific, for science is always simple and provable.
The body acts and reacts according to fixed laws of nature, and always acts the same under similar conditions, but it is very difficult, if not actually impossible, to tell when two people are in exactly the same physical condition regarding vitality, resistance and sensitiveness; therefore, the action of drugs is uncertain and the giving of them is largely experimental, because of these different conditions.
Take, for example, a case of simple neuralgia, which furnishes a fair comparison between osteopathic and medical methods of diagnosis and treatment. Osteopathy finds that neuralgia (nerve pain) is nearly always due to pressure upon the nerve at some point in its course, and usually near the spine, so instead of treating the whole system chemically to stop a purely local pain, it locates the pressure, and removes it mechanically, whereupon the nerve has no further cause for complaint.
Many cases called rheumatism are found, upon closer examination to be neuralgia. This is especially true of sciatica, which is often mistakenly called sciatic “rheumatism,” when in reality it is a neuralgia caused by pressure upon the fibers or tissues of the sciatic nerve by contractions of deep muscles of the lower spine, due to strain or exposure, or else a lesion of the vertebrae or the bones of the pelvis.
It is not necessary that a patient should feel a pain in his back in order to become aware that there is something wrong there; for, according to a well-known law, in nervous physiology, painful pressure of a nerve trunk is felt at the distant end of the nerve more than at the point of pressure, because the terminals are more sensitive. If a motor nerve is affected it will cause either excessive action or paralysis of the muscles under its control. If it is a vaso-motor nerve, it will disturb the circulation.
Now, let us see how and why it is that the spine and other parts of the bony framework so often get out of mechanical order. The reason is this: The wear and tear of living, the strains, falls, jars, sudden wrenches and sprains to which the spine of man is subjected from infancy to old age are some of the causes of its derangement. Faulty positions in sitting and standing, especially in children, weaken the lower spine, and this weakens the internal organs and predisposes to intestinal troubles, etc., and in girls or young women to pelvic problems, which can and should be prevented by spinal treatment before surgical operation becomes necessary.
Exposure to cold and chilling of the back results in contraction of spinal muscles, which, if not relieved, will, by their continual unequal pull, draw certain vertebrae out of line, just as surely as a small piece of rubber between the teeth will, by its continual pressure, separate those apparently immovable teeth.
Repeated colds weaken the spinal centres governing the vitality of the lungs, and thus predisposes to further colds or worse conditions.
Continued mental tension from worry, sorrow, overwork, or over-study, results in spinal tension, beginning under the base of the brain and extending down the spine until enough irritation is developed to sap the patient’s vitality and result in complete nerve exhaustion or neurasthenia. Spinal irritation is not an uncommon cause of insanity.
There are other causes of disease, of course, but these mechanical or structural conditions are sufficiently numerous and important to account for most of bodily ills which osteopathy is daily relieving and curing.
These mechanical defects may be only slight, and can only be discovered by properly trained hands and mind. They need not be such gross lesions as a dislocated or broken back, nor a severe spinal curvature. Between these extremes there are a hundred or more lesser degrees of disturbance which cause functional or organic disease just as do the extreme conditions, though more insidiously.
Realizing that these mechanical defects cause disease, we can better understand how their correction becomes a purely mechanical proposition. Chemicals cannot do it; vibration or electricity cannot do it.
Osteopathy uses scientific manipulations to readjust the bodily structures. Manipulate means “to operate with the hands”; manipulation means “a manual operation” (Webster). So, osteopathy is not massage, no more than is the manipulation employed to set a fracture or dislocation. Any critic, therefore, who attempts to belittle osteopathy by calling it massage simply shows his lack of understanding of the subject.
The effort of surgery is to correct the structural defects. Osteopathy includes surgery, and calls it to aid when absolutely necessary, but it has saved many cases from the necessity of the knife.
The reader should by now realize that osteopathy is not a narrow system of treatment, “only good for a few things,” or “only good for the bones,” as he has so often been told, but a broad system of therapeutics capable of treating the general run of human ills, whether functional or organic, acute or chronic, with remarkable results, because it is based upon the fundamental principles underlying the life and health of the body. It is applied anatomy, physiology and common sense.
On the other hand, osteopathy does not and never did claim to cure everything. But it can safely be said that it is good for everything, for it is hard to find a state of disease in which an improved circulation and nerve action is not beneficial.
One reason why osteopathy does not completely cure some cases is that many patients try it only as a last resort when all other methods have failed. Another reason is that some people are not reasonably patient enough to give it a fair trial, even though they have been ill for years.
The fact that osteopathy may not cure a particular case does not disprove the truth of its principles. Medicine fails to cure time and time again, yet people do not blame, but still cling to it with a tenacity born of faith and superstition engrafted upon the race for ages past until it has become a habit.
To sum up, the following statements will serve to bring out the essential points of osteopathy:
First: The healthy action of every part of the body depends upon a normal blood and nerve supply.
Second: Exposure, injuries, strains, overwork, functional abuses, etc., cause greater or less mechanical derangement of the framework of the body.
Third: These defects, by disturbing nerves and blood vessels, cause improper action of certain other parts.
Fourth, Osteopathy, by manipulation, corrects these mechanical defects, relieves the interference with nerves and blood, and thus liberates the natural sustaining forces of the body, so that normal action is restored and disease disappears.
Fifth: Through the medium of the nerves and their general control of the body, osteopathy is able to affect every part.
Strong vitality and resistance to disease is a matter of strong circulation and nerve action. Osteopathy accepts the theory that germs are only the exciting cause of disease, and that before they can become active in the body there must be a predisposing cause in the form of lowered vitality and resistance. In treating these cases the effort is to build up the vitality to the point where it can overcome germs. The factors which affect vitality have been explained above.
So much for the principles of osteopathy, which are being put into daily practice by six thousand practitioners throughout the land, and are being relied upon by thousands of families to keep them in health or restore them to health. The osteopath is rapidly becoming the family physician, treating acute as well as chronic ailments.<<
Wilfrid Streeter, 1910
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Aston Clinic London is a third-generation complementary health clinic located in New Malden, serving Kingston, Norbiton, Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Surbiton, Chessington, Worcester Park, Sutton, Richmond, and other areas of southwest London and Surrey.
By Laurie Melrose-Doering, Osteopath & Applied Kinesiologist
