Osteopathy was founded in 1874 by Dr Andrew Taylor Still, a backwoods doctor in Missouri, USA, who became disillusioned with the medicine of the day when two of his children died of meningitis. He founded osteopathy to reform medicine but when he encountered hostility he developed osteopathy as an independent system of medicine.
One should note that the orthodox medicine of the time was heroic, it used much bleeding and horrendous operations were carried out without the aid of anesthetics. It is interesting to note that around this time a bone-setter was demonstrating his methods at St Thomas's in London. Written records are remarkably similar to the new medical science being born in America. Dr Still served an apprenticeship to become a physician under his father's guidance and attended formal medical training in Baldwin, Kansas. Methodism was an influence that shaped his reforming ideals regarding slavery and women's rights.
The first graduate of the school of osteopathy that he was to set up was a woman. It is obvious that bone-setting was a major influence as was magnetic healing, spiritualism and Mesmerism. Before naming what he practiced as osteopathy it is recorded that he advertised himself as a `lightning bone-setter'. He treated anything from dysentery to sciatica. As his reputation developed so boarding houses were erected for his patients in Kirksville, Missouri.
It was in 1892, at the age of 64, in June or July, that Still, was visited by a doctor from Edinburgh. After an exchange of views a deal was struck and the doctor from Scotland agreed to teach anatomy if Still taught him osteopathy. The first class, a school of anatomy, to ten students, was of four months duration. It included his sons and daughter who he had already trained but wanted a better grounding in anatomy for them. This was the genesis of the American School of Osteopathy (ASO), in Kirksville, Missouri. The Articles of Association and Constitution were then deposited with the state of Missouri in 1994 and ASO received its Charter. The Charter allowed the conferring of MDs but Still stood out against this saying his system was different and better than traditional medicine. Still had no intention of starting a school but it seems that the catalyst for this was his visitor from the UK, Dr William Smith..
Prior to this an informal class was commenced in 1891 (Walter: 1992). Still, a strong liberal, opened his school to women and between 3 and 5 graduated from the first class. The school was also open to African Americans but it was 1970 before the first black person graduated. He originally thought he could teach his system in 4 months but discovered that the skills he had developed over 20 years were not so readily transferable. The course became 2 years in length. He was anti-pharmacopoeia most of the time. He was particularly against vaccination.
One of the early students was a Scot by the name of J Martin Littlejohn. It is believed that he gave the first talk on osteopathy in the UK, in 1898. Before leaving the USA it is worth recording that the present position of osteopaths (in the USA) is that they have equal status with regular physicians. In fact, many of them have given up practicing the more traditional osteopathy in favour of allopathic medicine. The discovery of modern drugs such as antibiotics hastened the process. Before the advent of antibiotics it was said that osteopathy was the most effective treatment for pneumonia. Many modern osteopaths in America have relegated the practice of osteopathy to the fringes of allopathy.
 Andrew Taylor Still 1828-1917 |
 Andrew Taylor Still & William Smith |
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 J Martin Littlejohn (1865-1947) |
Osteopathy had a very mixed history in the UK throughout the twentieth century. It never became subsumed into orthodox medicine in the way it did in the United States but generally it was not practiced in the way Still envisaged it when he founded it. Various attempts were made for statutory recognition which all failed. It was confined to the margins where the general public regarded osteopaths as specialists for backache. Some osteopaths have gained a reputation for treating viscera and treat conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, others, for treating cranially and there are others who treat children. It has been said that it is those who treat children are practicing the osteopathy that Still had in mind when he founded it. Everything and anything is treated in this category; it seems strange that it does not transfer to the adult form of the human species! Especially so when it is a matter of record that at the time of his meeting with Still, Littlejohn was suffering severe throat haemorrhages. Webster Jones, who was Littlejohn's successor as Principal at the BSO, claimed to be cured of three visceral conditions; chronic constipation since birth, all year round recurrant sore throat since the age of nine when he had a tonsillectomy and eye trouble. After all else failed it was osteopathy that cured him.
Various voluntary bodies were formed in an effort to self-regulate and monitor standards but it was not until the last decade that osteopathy succeeded in becoming statutorily recognised. It was the Osteopaths’ Act in 1993 that paved the way for the registration process that followed for the profession between May, 1998 and May, 2000. The General Osteopathic Council (GOsC) was formed to register osteopaths who fulfilled the requirements for the safe practice of osteopathy, to protect the public and to maintain standards. The process, through the Professional and Personal Portfolio (PPP) was an arduous one and created considerable tension in the profession. There are now nearly 4000 registered osteopaths. It is illegal to practice as an osteopath unless one is registered.
It is apt that the BOA still survives for a number of reasons. It is the oldest osteopathic body while the GOsC is the newest. It is apt and perhaps ironic that the need for the `medical’ osteopaths to have a body disappeared with the arrival of statutory regulation. It seemed that in its then form (it also had very few members) that the BOA was going to disappear and its Council decided to offer merger to all other bodies offering association activities with its title. The two largest organisations, the Osteopathic Association of Great Britain, incidentally the only purely association activity body, and the Guild of Osteopaths, offering both regulatory and association services to its members, agreed and the new BOA came into being on March the 21st, 1998. There are now two organisations, the newest being the GOsC, to protect the public, and the oldest, the BOA, to support osteopaths.
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