THE OSTEOPATHIC PROPAGANDA.

But what about Osteopathy? Why has it had such a wonderful growth in popularity? Why have nearly four thousand men and women, most of them intelligent and some of them educated, espoused it as a profession to follow as a life work? These are questions I shall now try to answer.

Osteopathic promoters and enthusiasts claim that the wonderful growth and popularity of Osteopathy prove beyond question its merits as a healing system. I have already dealt at length with reasons why intelligent people are so ready to fall victims to new systems of healing. The “perfect adjustment,” “perfect functioning” theory of Osteopathy is especially attractive to people made ripe for some “drugless healing” system by causes already mentioned. When Osteopathy is practiced as a combination of all manipulations and other natural aids to the inherent recuperative powers of the body, it will appeal to reason in such a way and bring such good results as to make and keep friends.

I am fully persuaded, and I believe the facts when presented will establish it, that it is the physio-therapy in Osteopathy that wins and holds the favor of intelligent people. But Osteopathy in its own name, taught as “a well-rounded system of healing adequate for every emergency,” has grown and spread largely as a “patent medicine” flourishes, i. e., in exact proportion to the advertising it has received. I would not presume to make this statement as merely my opinion. The question at issue is too important to be treated as a matter of opinion. I will present facts, and let my readers settle the point in their own minds.

Every week I get booklets or “sample copies” of journals heralding the wonderful curative powers of Osteopathy. These are published not as journals for professional reading, but to be sold to the practitioners by the hundreds or thousands, to be given to their patients for distribution by these patients to their friends. The publishers of these “boosters” say, and present testimonials to prove it, that Osteopaths find their practice languishes or flourishes just in proportion to the numbers of these journals and booklets they keep circulating in their communities. Here is a sample testimonial I received some time since on a postal card:

The boast is often made that Osteopathy is growing in spite of bitter opposition and persecution, and is doing it on its merits—doing it because “Truth is mighty and will prevail.” At one time I honestly believed this to be true, but I have been convinced by highest Osteopathic authority that it is not true. As some of that proof here is an extract from a circular letter from the secretary of the American Osteopathic Association:

This from the secretary of the American Osteopathic Association, when we have boasted of superior equipment for intelligent physicians. Incidentally we pause to make excuse for the expressions: “Curbing our limitations” and “sounding your own limitations.”

But does the idea that when we quit working as an organized body “our death knell begins to sound,” indicate that Osteopathic leaders are content to trust the future of Osteopathy to its merits?

If Osteopathic promoters do not feel that the life of their science depends on boosting, what did the secretary of the A.O.A. mean when he said, “Upon the success of these efforts depends the weal or woe of Osteopathy as an independent system”? If truth always grows under persecution, how can the American Medical Association kill Osteopathy when it is so well known by the people?

Nearly four thousand Osteopaths are scattered in thirty-six States where they have some legal recognition, and they are treating thousands of invalids every day. If they are performing the wonderful cures Osteopathic journals tell of, why are we told that the welfare of the system depends upon the noise that is made and the boosting that is done?

Has it required advertising to keep people using anesthetics since it was demonstrated that they would prevent pain?

Has it required boosting to keep the people resorting to surgery since the benefits of modern operations have been proved?

Does it look as if Osteopathy has been standing or advancing on its merits? Does it not seem that Osteopathy, as a complete system, is mostly a name, and “lives, moves, and has its being” in boosting? It seems to have been about the best boosted fad ever fancied by a foolish people. Governors and senators have boosted for it. Osteopathic journals have published again and again the nice things a number of governors said when they signed the bills investing Osteopathy with the dignity of State authority.

A certain United States senator from Ohio has won more notoriety as a champion of Osteopathy than he has lasting fame as a statesman.

Osteopathy has been the especial protÉgÉ of authors. Mark Twain once went up to Albany and routed an army of medical lobbyists who were there to resist the passage of a bill favorable to Osteopathy. For this heroic deed Mark is better known to Osteopaths to-day than even for his renowned history of Huckleberry Finn. He is in danger of losing his reputation as a champion of the “under dog in the fight.” Lately he has gone on the warpath again. This time to annihilate poor Mother Eddy and her fond delusion.

Opie Reed is a delightful writer while he sticks to the portrayal of droll Southern character. Ella Wheeler Wilcox is admirable for the beauty and boldness with which she portrays the passions and emotions of humanity. But they are both better known to Osteopaths for the bouquets they have tossed at Osteopathy than for their profound human philosophy that used to be promulgated by the Chicago American.Emerson Hough gave a little free advertising in his “Heart’s Desire.” There may have been “method in his madness,” for that Osteopathic horse doctoring scene no doubt sold many a book for the author.

Sam Jones also helped along with some of his striking originality. Sam said, “There is as much difference between Osteopathy and massage as between playing a piano and currying a horse.” The idea of comparing the Osteopath’s manipulations of the human body to the skilled touch of the pianist upon his instrument was especially pleasing to Osteopaths. However, Sam displayed about the same comprehension of his subject that preachers usually exhibit who try to say nice things about the doctors when they get their doctoring gratis or at reduced rates.

These champions of Osteopathy no doubt mean well. They can be excused on the ground that they got out of place to aid in the cause of “struggling truth.” But what shall we say of medical men, some of them of reputation and great influence, who uphold and champion new systems under such conditions that it is questionable whether they do it from principle or policy?

Osteopathic journals have made much of an article written by a famous “orificial surgeon.” The article appears on the first page of a leading Osteopath journal, and is headed, “An Expert Opinion on Osteopathy.” Among the many good things he says of the “new science” is this: “The full benefit of a single sitting can be secured in from three to ten minutes instead of an hour or more, as required by massage.” I shall discuss the time of an average Osteopathic treatment further on, but I should like to see how long this brother would hold his practice if he were an Osteopath and treated from three to ten minutes.

He also says that “Osteopathy is so beneficial to cases of insanity that it seems quite probable that this large class of terrible sufferers may be almost emancipated from their hell.” I shall also say more further on of what I know of Osteopathy’s record as an insanity cure. There is this significant thing in connection with this noted specialist’s boost for Osteopathy. The journal printing this article comments on it in another number; tells what a great man the specialist is, and incidentally lets Osteopaths know that if any of them want to add a knowledge of “orificial surgery” to their “complete science,” this doctor is the man from whom to get it, as he is the “great and only” in his specialty, and is big and broad enough to appreciate Osteopathy.

The most despicable booster of any new system of therapeutics is the physician who becomes its champion to get a job as “professor” in one of its colleges. Of course it is a strong temptation to a medical man who has never made much of a reputation in his own profession.

You may ask, “Have there been many such medical men?” Consult the faculty rolls of the colleges of these new sciences, and you will be surprised, no doubt, to find how many put M.D. after their names. Why are they there? Some of these were honest converts to the system, perhaps. Some wanted the honor of being “Professor Doctor,” maybe, and some may have been lured by the same bait that attracts so many students into Osteopathic colleges. That is, the positive assurance of “plenty of easy money” in it.

One who has studied the real situation in an effort to learn why Osteopathy has grown so fast as a profession, can hardly miss the conclusion that advertising keeps the grist of students pouring into Osteopathic mills. There is scarcely a corner of the United States that their seductive literature does not reach. Practitioners in the field are continually reminded by the schools from which they graduated that their alma mater looks largely to their solicitations to keep up the supply of recruits.

Their advertising, the tales of wonderful cures and big money made, appeal to all classes. It seems that none are too scholarly and none too ignorant to become infatuated with the idea of becoming an “honored doctor” with a “big income.” College professors and preachers have been lured from comfortable positions to become Osteopaths. Shrewd traveling men, seduced by the picture of a permanent home, have left the road to become Osteopathic physicians and be “rich and honored.”

Other classes come also. To me, when a student of Osteopathy, it was pathetic and almost tragic to observe the crowds of men and women who had been seduced from spheres of drudging usefulness, such as clerking, teaching, barbering, etc., to become money-making doctors. In their old callings they had lost all hope of gratifying ambition for fame and fortune, but were making an honest living. The rosy pictures of honor, fame and twenty dollars per day, that the numerous Osteopathic circulars and journals painted, were not to be withstood.

These circulars told them that the fields into which they might go and reap that $20 per day were unlimited. They said: “There are dozens of ministers ready to occupy each vacant pulpit, and as many applicants for each vacancy in the schools. Each hamlet has four or five doctors, where it can support but one. The legal profession is filled to the starving point. Young licentiates in the older professions all have to pass through a starving time. Not so in Osteopathy. There is no competition.” The picture was a rosy dream of triumphant success! When they had mastered the great science and become “Doctors of Osteopathy,” the world was waiting with open arms and pocketbooks to receive them.