Osteopathy was founded by Andrew Taylor Still, MD in the 1870s as an alternative to the risky medical therapies of the day which included pharmaceuticals that consisted of heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic and large doses of alcohol. Surgery was still a dangerous and painful proposition with no modern anesthetics nor any antibiotics should the surgical site become infected. How could medical outcomes be improved given these daunting challenges?

​

Dr. Still's eloquent solution to this dilemma arose from his observation that the structure of the body was directly related to its function. Dr. Still studied the anatomy of the body endlessly through his lifetime and found a perfection in its design which if supported and maintained would allow the body's own healing mechanisms to restore the body back to health.

​

While medications have come far, today they often manage symptoms versus offering resolution of underlying causes of disease and often have significant side effect profiles. Surgery, while much improved since the 1800s, still carries significant risks including unanticipated complications. By contrast Osteopathy often treats causes versus symptoms and has far less, if any risk or lasting side effects. The physician should always "first do no harm" by exhausting lesser invasive treatments before advancing to other options. Osteopathy's use and application are therefore as relevant today as they were in the time of Dr. Still.

​

In considering the relation between structure and function, Dr. Still started with the most obvious structure – the bones – which is why he named the science "osteo"(after the greek for "bone") and "pathy" (latin for "suffering").  But he realized the importance of treating all systems of the body including the lymphatics (which regulates both waste removal and immunological response) cardiac, especially the vasculature, respiratory, gastrointestinal, reproductive, etc.

​

Today, as in Still's time, the osteopath recognizes the musculoskeletal system (bones, muscles, and connective tissues) as all having a "normal" placement that preserves the overall health of the entire organism. When the musculoskeletal system falls out of "normal" the entire organism's function may be compromised and suffer a localized or much broader generalized disorder. 

​

Dr. Still saw the vasculature system as the "great river of life" carrying vital oxygen and nutrients to damaged organs and tissues and the veins along with the lymphatics, removing metabolic waste. The lymph system is seen as ubiquitous, pervading every place in the body. Efficient function of the lymphatics was seen by Dr. Still "as a matter life or death itself."

​

Nerve function is addressed by alleviating obstructions, impingements, irritations, or overstimulation. Many of today's most common illnesses such as high blood pressure, GI complaints and respiratory functional compromise are the result of an imbalance between the "fight or flight" and "rest and digest" halves of our autonomic nervous system. As the name would suggest, this neural system controls all the so called automatic functions of the body, blood pressure, respiratory function, digestion and every organ and blood vessel within the body.

​

Organ dysfunction can be addressed either by specifically working with individual organs or by treating the systems supporting and surrounding it such as the vasculature, lymphatics, nerve supply and fascia.

​

Dr. Still challenged his students and all who have followed to know what "normal" feels like in the body and by using the hands restore the body to this natural state of balance. While Still employed techniques still used in a modern osteopathic treatment such as gross mobilizations of boney structure including articulations, adjustment of the bones and release of the connective tissue (the fascia), what some refer to as biomechanical forces, he also appreciated the more subtle forces of nature at work in the human system and as his depth of understanding matured he employed these techniques equally.

​

Dr. Still understood and utilized these forces of nature and passed this knowledge onto those who attended his school including perhaps his greatest student, Dr. William G. Sutherland. One day at the American School of Osteopathy, now A.T. Still University, Sutherland noted the cranial bones of a disarticulated skull were beveled like the gils of a fish. He asked a simple question – why? His conclusion was the beveling allowed the bones to move slightly with one another.  But this defied the conventional wisdom of the day which suggested the skull fused together by about age 25.

​

Thus began a thirty year plus research project to prove the cranial bones did not move. This hypothesis failed and he concluded through exhaustive experiments on himself that the bones of the head did indeed have a subtle motion important to health. He observed the brain and central nervous system have an inherent motility, an inexplicable motion, which transmits through the cranial spinal fluid and into more distant structures and tissues within the body.

​

Dr. Sutherland realized there is mobility in the cranial bones, the sacrum independent of the pelvis, the membranes in the head and the cranial spinal fluid. As his work progressed over decades Dr. Sutherland came to realize there were forces of nature, as Dr. Still had taught, that were at work in health and they could be harnessed for the body to set up its own therapeutic protocols, far more thoroughly, eloquently and with greater sophisticated than any a clinician could perform utilizing their intellect working piecemeal through different structures of the body. Sutherland's work came to be known as Cranial Osteopathy.