Happy World Osteopathy Day!
Thursday 22nd June is World Osteopathy Day! In celebration of this annual awareness day, we’ve pulled together a brief history of the profession…
Osteopathic medicine was founded in 1874 by American physician, Dr Andrew Taylor Still.
Still was from an era where medicine was taught through lecture, and not clinical application. Fuelled by the loss of his three children to spinal meningitis and disapproval of harsh drugs and barbaric surgeries, Still dedicated himself to the study of health, illness and disease.
His intense desire to improve surgery, obstetrics and general medical practice led him to create an innovative new system of diagnosis and treatment. This treatment focussed heavily on causes, not symptoms, and highlighted the importance of understanding the human body and its mechanics as a whole.
His primary concerns were of both mental and physical disease, and restoring proper function and structure of the body. In addition, he fixated on the concept of health in its broadest sense, that is, being healthy and maintaining good health through nutrition and exercise, as well as emotional health.
From these principles, osteopathy was born.
Osteopathy is a compound of two Ancient Greek words – 'osteon' meaning bone, and ‘pathos’ meaning to respond to. This is because Still reasoned that the human skeleton was the starting point of any investigation of a pathological condition.
Once Still moved to Kirksville, Missouri, his dramatically successful treatments began to spread via newspaper and word of mouth. His practice grew rapidly, and so the need to teach others became more and more crucial. So, as a result of Still’s tireless work, in 1892 he opened the American School of Osteopathy.
The Dean of the school, Martin Littlejohn, later went on to found the British School of Osteopathy and the Journal of Osteopathy in 1917, thus laying the foundations of osteopathy in Britain and eventually Europe.
Until the introduction of the Osteopaths Act in 1993, osteopathy was considered to be outside of mainstream medical practice in Britain, and not a legally regulated profession.
This led to the establishment of the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC), as well as the Register of Osteopaths opening in 1998. Now like other medical professions, in order to practice and use the title of ‘osteopath’, osteopathy is subject to statutory regulations and qualified practitioners must be registered with the GOsC.
For over 140 years the health profession of osteopathy has done so much to help people lead better quality lives, and it really does deserve a day of its own in recognition of its contribution to society across the world.
Happy World Osteopathy Day!
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