Andrew Taylor Still

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Andrew Taylor Still in 1914

Andrew Taylor Still (* 6. August 1828 in Lee County , Virginia ; † 12. December 1917 in Kirksville , Missouri ) developed at the end of the 19th century today for Complementary Medicine counted osteopathy .

life and work

Youth and education

The son of a Methodist priest and doctor, he was born in Lee County , Virginia, the third of nine children. By working with his father, he acquired medical training in the teaching process and, in accordance with the American laws of the time, was officially licensed as a country doctor. This also explains why there is no proof of university education. Like his father, he practiced the humoral pathology used by the heroic doctors of the time . Still, however, added this early on with non-university methods such as phytology and bone-setting techniques of the Shawnee Indians , as well as applications that are described by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley (1703-1791), in his manual for his traveling preachers . Whether and to what extent Wesley's critical attitude towards heroic medicine, which can be derived from this handbook, had a formative effect on Still cannot be proven. In the American Civil War he played an active role on the side of the opponents of slavery and was involved in minor interventions in field hospitals in Kansas City.

Setbacks and reorientation

After returning in 1864, after two of his biological children succumbed to bacterial meningitis within a few days and an adopted child died of pneumonia shortly afterwards, even though Still had consulted several regular doctors and clergy, he turned away from established medicine and all religious institutions. He began to perfect his knowledge of functional anatomy and empirically investigated all medical approaches of the Midwest of that time. Evidently, he dealt among other things with the cellular pathology of Rudolf Virchow .

Since Still was interested not only in medical but in all questions of life, his autodidactic development of osteopathy was accompanied by extensive studies of the most diverse intellectual currents of his time, including American transcendentalism , phrenology , mesmerism , the theory of evolution v. a. after Herbert Spencer , the spiritism or spiritual healing inspired by Swedenborgianism , bone setting and manipulative techniques or phytomedicine and shamanism of the Shawnee Indians. As a temporary member of the Masonic Lodge in Kirksville, he also had access to new scientific knowledge from the east coast of America and Europe.

Still met all medical and intellectual currents a priori with a skeptical-pragmatic attitude and was only convinced when the hypotheses represented in them were both logically and practically successful. Especially in Still's autobiography, one can clearly see the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his skepticism towards any form of authority, as well as his call for independent and ethical thinking. With this form of empiricism, Still was at the height of the science of the time.

Originally not interested in opening a school, he was finally persuaded in 1892 by former patients and doctor friends to establish a small educational institution at the age of 64, which initially only taught anatomy and philosophical thinking. Since Still had no interest in administrative tasks, but at the same time the school was growing rapidly, he withdrew more and more from the school as early as the mid-1890s. Still died in 1917 of complications from a second stroke.

Religiousness and Spirituality

Quiet grew up in a strictly Methodist family. After the death of his children in 1864, he broke with all institutional religions.

Even if the Adventist influence was very strong in the American Midwest in the mid-19th century, Gardner's claim that Still had switched to the Adventists is unfounded. Likewise, Gardner's assertion that he returned to the Methodists should also be viewed critically.

Basics of stills classical osteopathy

Still writes that he hoisted the "banner of osteopathy" on June 22, 1874 at 10:00 in the morning, in fact the term did not appear officially until 1891/92 when his school, the American School of Osteopathy was founded. The compound term is derived from the ancient Greek words osteon for bones and pathos for suffering.

In his opinion, still purely manual techniques were used for the optimal adaptation (not: correction) of the organism, whereby the self-regulation mechanisms, i.e. H. the health of the body could develop better again and would suppress existing symptoms or diseases.

In contrast to the usual heroic and orthodox medicine, Still's approach does not aim at fighting the pathogens, but at strengthening that part of the inner milieu that we know today as the defense system. In order to achieve this, anatomical 'lesions' that have a direct, but above all indirect, influence on the physiology of the body via a disturbance of the blood and / or nervous system must be eliminated .

Still's approach is highly complex in that it combines vitalistic thinking with mechanistic action. Since the sources of health and not those of pathology were the focus of his attention, his approach is salutogenic, which also explains the difference between Still's osteopathy and purely pathogenetically oriented chiropractic, chiropractic or manual medicine / manual therapy, which primarily focus on active elimination a condition or a symptom goes through the practitioner. And since he got to know physical medicine as part of pastoral care, his image corresponds to that of the Hippocratic ideal doctor as a body doctor, pastor and philosopher in one person who does not treat diseases, but accompanies people.

The osteopath's task was now to use manual techniques to solve the lesion so that the body fluids can flow freely again and health can develop again in order to suppress the symptoms on their own.

With regard to the term God, it is important to note that Still means an all-pervasive and reflective superordinate, benevolent and intelligent entity in the pantheistic sense and not any form of religious enlightenment figure or a religious model. He was just as critical of these as of pathogenetic medicine and this turning away from any institutionalized churches, but also any sectarianism, expresses himself v. a. from the fact that "God" is described in his four monographs with 72 different terms (Jehowa, Manitou, Great Architect, Great Inventor, Great Philosopher, etc.).

Still's osteopathy is highly complex in that it combines two contradicting medical-philosophical approaches: On the one hand, he represented a vitalistic approach in his worldview with an independent body of life, whose intelligence he saw as solely responsible for all healings; on the other hand, his techniques and thus his approach to action were based exclusively on rational and purely mechanistic considerations of anatomical-physiological relationships.

From what has been said so far, the following results for Stills Classic Osteopathy:

• It is a 'philosophical' extension of the existing pathogenetic medicine to include the salutogenic aspect.
• It is an integral part of overall medicine and therefore neither alternative nor complementary medicine.
• It represents an approach to treating people, not diseases.
• It deals with all the consequences of anatomical-physiological maladjustments, with musculoskeletal complaints only representing a small sub-area.
• Your treatment goal is the adaptation of the anatomical-physiological framework for better development of the self-regulatory mechanisms.
• It assigns the sole responsibility for healing to the intelligence of life → There are no healers or healers.

Known students and advancement

Among his best-known students are John Martin Littlejohn , who founded the British School of Osteopathy in England in 1917, the first European school for osteopathy, and William Garner Sutherland , who developed craniosacral osteopathy . Daniel David Palmer , the founder of today's chiropractic , was a guest at Still's home for two weeks in 1895 and was introduced to osteopathy by Still's daughter Blanche. He reduced Still's originally highly complex approach to short-lever techniques and symptom treatment and supplemented it in his work The Chiropractor with esoteric and sectarian ideas, which were obviously strongly influenced by theosophy . Modern chiropractic has now distanced itself from this.

Oddities

In his autobiography, he described himself as "possibly the best living anatomist". Andrew Taylor Still denied the existence of microbes , which was already firmly established by Louis Pasteur at the time, as well as the role they played in the development of diseases, as shown by Robert Koch . In 1910 he wrote his first textbook for the school he founded. In it he described his methods of manual therapy on the spine, with the help of which he believed he had "cured" yellow fever , malaria , rickets , hemorrhoids , diabetes, dandruff as well as obesity . Still believed to have reversed hair loss or caused lasting hair growth in a bald person by rubbing against the spine . He believed that diseases are based on malfunctioning nerves and blood supply. These are caused by the blocking of individual body parts (joints, bones, fascia) and are largely to blame if the body cannot cope with healing on its own. It is the osteopath's job to find and "adjust" these obstructions. How these "adjustments" hold by themselves is not clear.

See also

• Osteopathy

literature

• J. Lewis: AT Still: From the Dry Bone to the Living Man.
• ER Booth: History of Osteopathy and 20th-Century Medical Practice.
• David Fuller: Osteopathy and Swedenborg.
• AT Still: Autobiography of Andrew T. Still: With a history of the discovery and development of the science of osteopathy, together with an account of the founding of the American School of Osteopathy.
• Carol Trowbridge: Andrew Taylor Still 1828-1917.
• B. Chickley (Ed.): The Lengthening Shadow of AT Still.
• CE Still: Frontier Doctor, Medical Pioneer.
• MA Lane: AT Still, Founder of Osteopathy.
• EE Tucker: Remeniscenses of AT Still. (unpublished)
• M. Still: Remeniscenses of Pioneer life. (unpublished)
• P. Brown: ATStill - Lightning Bonesetter. (unpublished)
• P. Brown: Foundation of Osteopathic Medi. (unpublished)
• AT Still: The large Still Compendium. Ed .: Christian Hartmann.
• John Martin Littlejohn: The Great Littlejohn Compendium. Ed .: Christian Hartmann.
• WG and AS Sutherland: The large Sutherland compendium. Ed .: Christian Hartmann.
• AT Still: Trust nature to the end !. Ed .: Christian Hartmann.
• J. McGovern: Your inner healer.
• DD Palmer: The Chiropractor.
• C. Hartmann: Thoughts on AT Still's philosophy of osteopathy
• C. Hartmann (Ed.): Memories of Andrew Taylor Still

Web links

• Literature by and about Andrew Taylor Still in the catalog of the German National Library
• Autobiography 1897 ( Memento of March 5, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
• Philosophy 1899 ( Memento from May 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
• Still National Osteopathic Museum at AT Still University (ATSU)
• [1]
• atsu.edu

Individual evidence

1. ^ Martin Gardner : Fads and fallacies in the name of science. Dover Publications, New York 1957, p. 203.
2. ↑ Wesley, John, Natural Medicines, 2019.
3. ^ ^{A b c} Lewis, AT Still: From the Dry Bone to the Living Man, 2013.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Trowbridge, Andrew Taylor Still 1828-1917., 2005
5. ^ ^{A b} Booth: History of Osteopathy and Medicine of the 20th Century, 1924.
6. ^ Fuller: Osteopathie and Swedenborg, 2013.
7. ^ Lewis; AT Still - From the Dry Bone to the Living Man, 2013.
8. ↑ McGovern, your Inner Healer. A field theory for healthcare. Published 10/2014.
9. ^ Palmer: The Chiropractor, 1910.
10. ^ Andrew Taylor Still: Autobiography of Andrew T. Still: With a history of the discovery and development of the science of osteopathy, together with an account of the founding of the American School of Osteopathy. 1897, Ch. XIII, p. 207.
11. ↑ Andrew Taylor Still: OSTEOPATHY, Research and Practice. 1910, p.225
12. ^ Andrew Taylor Still: Autobiography of Andrew T. Still: With a history of the discovery and development of the science of osteopathy, together with an account of the founding of the American School of Osteopathy. 1897, p. 181
13. ^ Martin Gardner : Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Ch. 16 - Medical Cults, Dover Publications, New York 1957, ISBN 0-486-20394-8 , p. 204.