Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1895-09-27
HEALING WITHOUT MED.
lCINE.
BY JOHN II. MUsICK.

least specifics. is such a keen one
that quacks and charlatans have
everywhere sprung up to throw
bait before the eager sufferers, ex-
tort money from them, and, per-
haps, incidentally render their
cure impossible.
In order to remedy this abuse
many of our State legislatures
have enacted laws regulating the
practice of medicine, 80 that no
one who is not Il graduate from
some reputable medical college is
permitted to practice the healing
art. But the most rigid laws have
been insufficient to prevent quack-
cry entirely.
On the other hand, some claim
that the State Medical Boards and
State Boards of Health-who usu-
ally have charge of such matters
sometimes overstep the bounds
of reason, and place barriers in
the way of scientific investigation,
limiting the healing art to the
narrow confines of established
schools. Every few years some
new discovery or system in the
art of healing is announced. Many
are frauds, but some have proved
to be of practical value, so it will
not do to denounce theory be-
cause it is new. Investigate it,
and if it stands the test, it is valu-
able, and is worthy of recognition
by the scientific world.
No person looks with more sus-
picion on new theory that threat
ems to invade his established ideas
than the doctor. He may be lib
eral, or even radical, in other
matters, but as a rule he is welded
to his school," and professional
pride, etiquette, or whatever it
may be termed, confines him to
the metes and bounds laid down
therein, regardless of the wishes
of the patient. The allopathic,
the homeopathic, botanical, and
eclectic schools, as a rule, take no
professional recognition of each
other.
The best physicians, so some
declare, give the least medicine,
and for the last twenty years there
has been slowly growing class of
doctors in the West who dispense
with medicine altogether.
The founder of this new school
is DR.. A. T. Still, Virginian by
birth, who during the Civil War
served as surgeon in the United
States Army. He is now about
seventy years of age, tall, slightly
stoop-shouldered, with blue eyes
and dark hair in which there is
scarcely a thread of silver. He is
unassuming in manner, even to &C.
centr;city, with little regard to the
social formalities of life.
He has named his new science
Osteopathy, not because it relates
to the bones in the body alone,
but because the bones are the
frame or foundation on which the
organs of the body are built. His
theory is that man is an animated
machine, built by a divine and in
fnitely wise mechanic, and he de-
clares no one can improve on the
works of God. If the machine
gets out of order the best way to
remedy the defect is to set the
works right, and then it will run.
"For instance" he illustrates, "if
some substance should get in the
wheels of watch, or the cogs
should become locked or bent,
would sensible workman pour
arsenic, nux vomica, or some
chemicals calculated to destroy
the works into it? No. First he
would ascertain where the obstruc-
ton was, would remove it,
straighten the bent wheels, and
set it going. But, you say, he
would add little oil. That is
true, but in the case of human ma
chimes God has supplied each with
oil, so that food is the only assist
ance required"
Osteopaths claim that disease is
the consequence of some violated
law of nature. Good health is
natural, and sickness unnatural.
The history of DR.. Stills dis