Osteopathy: a short history!
The man regarded as the founder of Osteopathy was the American Dr. Andrew Taylor Still. Still was born on the 6th August, 1828 in Virginia, USA.
Andrew Taylor Still graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Kansas City, whilst he followed his father around. His father was also a doctor.
In 1864, Dr Still lost three of his children to viral meningitis. He was a doctor, yet his medical training could not save the lives of his own family. Still became very concerned about the way soliders were treated for their wounds during his time as an Army medical officer
For the next ten years, Dr Still was to search for reasons why people became sick whilst others were spared. His religious background led him to believe that everything was perfect in the beginning and anything that happened to the body to produce disease was an alteration to this fact.
He called his new system of medicine, Osteopathy (osteon is the Greek word for bone). This was because his system was based in the musculo-skeletal system.
In 1892, Still opened the first Osteopathic college in Kirksville Missouri. The first class of Dr Still's American School of Osteopathy graduated in 1893. Now, a DO degree is the same as a MD degree in the USA (for more information see Osteopathy in the USA ).
Dr John Martin Littlejohn, a student in the first graduating class of Still's Osteopathic college, founded the British School of Osteopathy(BSO) in 1917.
Now, Osteopathy has spread to many countries across the world including Australia.
The first practising Osteopaths came to Australia in 1908. Until 1986, Australia was accepting overseas graduates but then a government-funded degree course was established at the Phillip Institute of Technology, now the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Victoria Unversity of Technology established an Osteopathic course in 1993 and the University of Western Sydney established an Osteopathic course in 1998.
Page last updated: February
4th, 1999
Maintained by Brett
Vaughan