ANDREW TAYLOR STILL FOUNDER OF OSTEOPATHY

Ahmed Samir PT, BsC, MsC

Still was born in lee county, Virginia , in 1828, the son of a Methodist minister and physician. At an early age, Still decided to follow in his father's footsteps as a physician. After studying medicine and serving an apprenticeship under his father, he entered the civil war as a hospital steward, but later stated in his autobiography

ANDREW TAYLOR STILL (August 6, 1828 – December 12, 1917)

that he served as a "defector surgeon." This is consistent with US army military medical history of the time.

Still was a typical frontier physician, having been trained through apprenticeship, with some medical lectures attended later. Like nearly all frontier physicians, he did many things besides practice medicine: farming, mechanical work, and fighting in the Civil War. His medical practice included caring for both settlers and American Indians.

He was also a physician & surgeon, author, inventor and Kansas territorial & state legislator. He was one of the founders of Baker university, the oldest 4-year college in the state of Kansas , and was the founder of the American School of Osteopathy (now A.T UNIVERSITY), the world's first osteopathic medical school, in KIRKSVILLE,MISSOURI

Still and his family were among the founders of

Baker university, the first 4-year university in the

state of Kansas. Between 1854 and 1856, the

general conference of the Methodist Episcopal

church appointed three commissioners, Elder

Hood, A.B. Dennis and Still's father, Abram Still,

to purchase a site for Baker University.[

Still was involved in selecting the location for the site of Baker

University's first building. Along with his brother, Still donated 640 acres of land for the university campus, While

maintaining his medical practice, where he treated patients afflicted with small -pox and cholera , Still

spent 5 years building the facilities at Baldwin city, during that time, Still

also served as a representative of Douglas County in the Kansas

Legislature, and participated in the abolition of slavery from the state

After the Civil War and following the death of three of his

children from spinal meningitis in 1864, Still concluded that

the orthodox medical practices of his day were frequently

ineffective and sometimes harmful. He devoted the next

thirty years of his life to studying the human body and

finding alternative ways to treat disease . During this period,

he completed a short course in medicine at the new College

of Physicians and Surgeons in Kansas city Missouri, in 1870.

Still first articulated the idea of improving medical practice while living in Kansas in 1874. It was at that time, he had a seminal thought: The human body has much in common with a machine, one which ought to function well if it is mechanically sound

Still was also one of the first physicians to promote the idea of preventive medicine and the philosophy that physicians should focus on treating the disease rather than just the symptoms.

Still's treatment methods, which included

manipulation designed to improve circulation and

to correct altered mechanics, began to show

results. In 1889 the number of patients traveling

to see Still at his newly-founded infirmary became

so great that he was forced to stay in Kirksville,

Missouri rather than traveling to see patients. He

became busier, and people began to speak of him

with respect and understanding.

Spent 20 years learning and perfecting osteopathic medicine before founding the American School of

Osteopathy. He was 65 years old when he first opened the doors to his medical school. The plan to build this school was strongly encouraged by Kirksville leaders and businessmen who feared

that because of his age, Dr. Still might die at any time without trained followers.

A.T. Still founded the first school of

osteopathy based on this new

approach to medicine - the school was

called the American School of

Osteopathy (now A.T. Still University)

in Kirksville, Missouri in 1892.

The first class was 17 men and women

ranging in age from 18 to 65 by 1897,

enrollment had passed 500 students

Unconventional for his day; Dr. Still

accepted women and African

Americans to his school.

.

that science which consists of such exact, exhaustive, and verifiable

knowledge of the structure and function of the human mechanism,

anatomical, physiological and psychological, including the

chemistry and physics of its known elements, as has made

discoverable certain organic laws and remedial resources, within the

body itself, by which nature under the scientific treatment peculiar

to osteopathic practice, apart from all ordinary methods of

extraneous, artificial, or medicinal stimulation, and in harmonious

accord with its own mechanical principles, molecular activities, and

metabolic processes, may recover from displacements,

disorganizations, derangements, and consequent disease, and

regained its normal equilibrium of form and function in health and

strength.

A.T STILL defined OSTEOPATHY as:

Dr. Still believes that by correcting problems in the

body's structure, through manipulative treatment,

the body's ability to function and to heal itself is

greatly improved. He also promotes the idea of

preventive medicine and endorses the philosophy

that physicians should focus on treating the whole

patient, rather than just the disease. Based on this

philosophy

Early students learned anatomy from

William Smith, M.D., a Scotsman who

had studied medicine in Edinburgh and

had become interested in osteopathic

medicine while traveling in the United

States. He was the first to receive a D.O.

degree. Still taught osteopathic medical

practice by lecture and demonstration

and through practice with his own

patients. The ASO awarded 18 diplomas

in March, 1894. More schools opened

after the ASO, and graduates spread

around the country in private practices.

The contributions of Andrew Taylor Still to

medicine are:

(1) The development of a philosophy of medicine, which is the first and only in existence

(2) He applied the four principles of this philosophy to the prevention and treatment of disease along with patient education about nutrition and hygiene to create the only complete practice of medicine in existence today.

Osteopathic Philosophy

The body is a unit

Structure and Function are interrelated

The body has self- healing and self regulating Mechanisms

All treatment must be applied to the individual patient All patients are unique, and medical treatment must be applied to each patient individually.

This new system promised simply to support health, which

on the surface would not seem controversial. But the end of

the 19th century was a time of multiple schools of healing,

and on the frontier there was medical competition and a

mistrust of new ideas.

Dr Still’s Medical License

1918 Influenza Epidemic: D.O. physicians were first recognized nationally for their successes during this outbreak. Great swine flu pandemic killed 650,000 individuals in the U.S. and 40 million worldwide. This was the “pre-antibiotic era” where weakened patients often developed bacterial complications. Allopathic treatment consisted of calomel to “open the bowels” and strychnine for cardiac weakness. Osteopathic treatment consisted of manipulative treatments such as promoting pulmonary function, isolation, hygiene, and fluids. There was a 0.2% mortality rate for patients treated by osteopathic physicians, compared to a 5-15% mortality rate for patients under allopathic treatment. Of those patients with pneumonia, osteopathic physicians lost 10%, compared with 25-60% reported lost from allopathic institutions.

THANKS