Was A.T. Still A Quack?

[Ifellinapothole]

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Ok....in the 1850-1860's, medicine killed probably as many people as it cured- especially in the U.S..

This turned Still and Palmer to the belief that bone setting and magnetic healing was the cure-all for disease. But where were there statistics to back these claims up? Where are they today? We learn OMM, but I wish these schools tried to win over or convince their students w/ statistical analyses and p-values rather than spurious indoctrination. I truly love OMM, yet would feel 100 times more comfortable w/ it if I knew it was scientifically substantiated. And I am not talking about some study conducted by a third year med student on dogs showing the benefits of Lymphatic techniques.

I mean real science w/ people being treated in Group 1) w/ drugs and/or physical therapy 2) drugs and/ or OMM and whatever other criteria you want to use. But high powered studies.

Since the late 1800's, thanks largely to German Medicine, medicine has become more science and less snake oil application. Osteopathich medicine caught on and overthrew the "bone healers" and became mainstream medicine.

However, we really still need a scientific justification of teaching OMM. If not, it should not be trumpeted as a mysterious form of healing and rather a complement to anatomy where the student is allowed to view and palpate a live anatomy specimen.

Your thoughts?

 

[CatsandCradles]

Ok....in the 1850-1860's, medicine killed probably as many people as it cured- especially in the U.S..

This turned Still and Palmer to the belief that bone setting and magnetic healing was the cure-all for disease. But where were there statistics to back these claims up? Where are they today? We learn OMM, but I wish these schools tried to win over or convince their students w/ statistical analyses and p-values rather than spurious indoctrination. I truly love OMM, yet would feel 100 times more comfortable w/ it if I knew it was scientifically substantiated. And I am not talking about some study conducted by a third year med student on dogs showing the benefits of Lymphatic techniques.

I mean real science w/ people being treated in Group 1) w/ drugs and/or physical therapy 2) drugs and/ or OMM and whatever other criteria you want to use. But high powered studies.

Since the late 1800's, thanks largely to German Medicine, medicine has become more science and less snake oil application. Osteopathich medicine caught on and overthrew the "bone healers" and became mainstream medicine.

However, we really still need a scientific justification of teaching OMM. If not, it should not be trumpeted as a mysterious form of healing and rather a complement to anatomy where the student is allowed to view and palpate a live anatomy specimen.

Your thoughts?

Have you ever read Norman Glevitz's "The D.O." Read the section about Kirsville that is entitled "The Missourri Mecca." You can't pay thousands of people patients to be quacks.

But I will agree with you that its hard to run across carefully done studies on the efficacies of OMT. You either love it, or you hate it bitterly.

 

[Old_Mil]

However, we really still need a scientific justification of teaching OMM. If not, it should not be trumpeted as a mysterious form of healing and rather a complement to anatomy where the student is allowed to view and palpate a live anatomy specimen.

Your thoughts?

A.T. Still wasn't a quack, no more than Hippocrates or Galen were. These men were pioneers in medicine at a time when scientific knowledge was a tiny fraction of what it is today and nobody was practicing evidence based medicine. From a purely objective standpoint, an MS II knows more about medicine as a whole than any of these men learned individually in their whole careers...but this is only because we stand on their shoulders.

The problem arises when people refuse to abandon old treatment modalities and advance as science advances the rest of "the profession". Some allopathic medical schools started as homeopathic institutions. You don't see them advocating homeopathy today, because they rightly abandoned what science could not prove efficacious.

Look at what your modern osteopathic crusader does: advocates membership in osteopathic-only organizations to the professional detriment of DOs, advocates purging the profession of non-manipulators saying "you should have gone to MD school" despite this category covering 90% of practicing DOs, sees all aspects of OMT as a valuable, and loves cranial. Some even advocate hoxsey therapy and magnets. If you're looking for osteopathic ducks, you don't have to look much further than that.

To place that label on Dr. Still, who practed over a 100 years ago and honestly searched for an alternative to mercury poisoning as therapy, is a bit unfair.

 

[Dr JPH]

For once I think I largely agree with Old Mil. 😉

AT Still was doing the best he could with what was available at that time.

Some of what he taught can still apply today, but certainly not all.

 

[misparas]

Was he a little weird?

YES! Most brilliant people are a bit weird.

Was he a quack?

Not a chance.

Definition of a quack....
1. a fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill.
2. a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to skill, knowledge, or qualifications he or she does not possess; a charlatan.

He was searching for an alternative to the medicine of his day because he didn't want to be fraudulent.

I can see why he didn't want to give people mercury and bleed them to death.

One can't claim that he was ignorant, because he figured out that heroic medicine wasn't working long before many of his more prestigious colleagues.

Is OMM a useful thing? Absolutely. I don't know how much I'll use it, because I'm not sure what I want to specialize in. But it is definitely useful. They even have D.O.'s teaching some first year stuff at Harvard. The AMA has recognized, more than a hundred years later, that they are not prepared to deal with musculoskeletal dysfunction properly.

Not a quack.

 

[misparas]

Oh yeah...

Old_Mil is right on.

 

[hyperbaric]

AT Still was doing the best he could with what was available at that time.

Some of what he taught can still apply today, but certainly not all.

👍

 

[scpod]

He was searching for an alternative to the medicine of his day because he didn't want to be fraudulent.
...Not a quack.

Well, he was pretty motivated by experiences in his own life. He was searching for answers because three of his children died in a 48 hour span in a meningitis epidemic, and a fourth died of pneumonia two weeks later. Nothing that allopathic medicine taught him was able to save them. I think that I might have tried to search for answers as well. He was an early pioneer of EBM. But, he didn't care "how" it worked, just that it worked. There are a lot of things that we use today that we still have only proposed mechanisms for, because we really don't know how they work, but we don't stop using them.

 

[Pharos]

I think you'll find he was ahead of his time in many aspects (recognizing that medicines of the day were doing as much harm as good for example) but he was also behind on others (for example, he never did come around to antibiotics even after they had been shown to work - a bit stubborn in that respect). However, nobody's perfect and I certainly wouldn't say he was a quack by any means...quite the contrary actually (even though he was a bit eccentric).

 

[Dartos Vader]

Just imagine what doctors in one hundred years will say about medicine today. I'd like to see those posts.

 

[Ifellinapothole]

Just imagine what doctors in one hundred years will say about medicine today. I'd like to see those posts.

You know....i labeled this thread incorrectly...

I was really interested if you all (i.e. Osteo students) are bothered by the lack of data justifying OMM. Is it that the schools just don't feel the need to produce such data or is it that it doesn't exist? I mean I spend one day a week in lab doing stuff that sometimes I have no clue if it has any applicability and benefit in the REAL world. I could give two ****s about the boards (beyond passing).

Some of OMM obviously (like the Spencer technique) seems logical and obviously beneficial. But, I am not so sure about the whole somatic dysfunction obsession. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just don't know based on statistical analysis. OMM should be held to the same standard as other treatments today. No?

I haven't done cranial yet, but I hear from various sources that this is highly suspect in its efficacy.

My apologies to Dr. Still...

 

[Hoberto]

Gosh, Ifell, I agree with you. I am neither pro-OMM or anti-OMM, but with all the emphasis on evidence based medicine in our other courses why is it ignored in OMM class? Sometimes I feel like we walk into that lab and have to be part of a cult. We aren't to question anything, just agree. This is made worse when any difficulty in finding a rotated vertebra or whatnot is cause for insults from the instructor.

Why is that? Even if the profs lamented the lack of evidence and their desire to see more OMM research I would feel better about the whole thing. It's the whole throw out EBM for this ONE course, but focus on it for all other courses that really gets me. It's just so hypocritical.

I want to love OMM and I want to learn how to use it, but the instruction is causing increasing disdain/apathy as time goes by.

 

[Richie Truxillo]

Old_Mil gets my post of the day award. I feel exactly the same way!

*Hands Old_Mil a well-deserved cookie*

 

[Taus]

Gosh, Ifell, I agree with you. I am neither pro-OMM or anti-OMM, but with all the emphasis on evidence based medicine in our other courses why is it ignored in OMM class? Sometimes I feel like we walk into that lab and have to be part of a cult. We aren't to question anything, just agree. This is made worse when any difficulty in finding a rotated vertebra or whatnot is cause for insults from the instructor.

Why is that? Even if the profs lamented the lack of evidence and their desire to see more OMM research I would feel better about the whole thing. It's the whole throw out EBM for this ONE course, but focus on it for all other courses that really gets me. It's just so hypocritical.

I want to love OMM and I want to learn how to use it, but the instruction is causing increasing disdain/apathy as time goes by.

There is a lot of research "in the works"....I know TCOM, PCOM and UMDNJ have a decent amt. of OMM research. That being said, we can all agree that there isn't that much "good" research out yet and what is out there is grossly inadaquate.

Regarding the manner in which some of you have described being taught....I'm sorry but that really sucks. I don't think I've ever seen anyone here get any flack for not being able to make a diagnosis (someone will usually come over to help) or for questioning a prof on why we're doing something. Anyway, some of the visceral stuff does seem a little out there...and it seems like a a very minor part of our OMM curriculum as it should be IMO. As for the somatic stuff and treatments such as hvla and muscle energy....when something is out of place and/or causing pain....you treat it and put it back in place/relax it....patient is happy...end of story.

Granted I want to do PM&R and musculoskeletal injuries and pain management are a big part of it....but what I described in the last sentence just makes sense to me and is something I hope to provide for patients along with the other standards of care. So for all of the treatments and things that you find stupid and flat out bs...forget them after you're tested...and remember the ones that you think are useful. When a patient has back pain you'll be able to do more then give some muscle relaxers and prescibe PT. That makes learning this stuff plenty worth it to me research or not.

 

[FutureNavyDOc]

Gosh, Ifell, I agree with you. I am neither pro-OMM or anti-OMM, but with all the emphasis on evidence based medicine in our other courses why is it ignored in OMM class? Sometimes I feel like we walk into that lab and have to be part of a cult. We aren't to question anything, just agree. This is made worse when any difficulty in finding a rotated vertebra or whatnot is cause for insults from the instructor.

Why is that? Even if the profs lamented the lack of evidence and their desire to see more OMM research I would feel better about the whole thing. It's the whole throw out EBM for this ONE course, but focus on it for all other courses that really gets me. It's just so hypocritical.

👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

That is my problem exactly.

What drives me nuts is the vast quantity of claims made by OMM instructors and fellows about the wonders of OMM.

For instance in OMM, we were told that:

Cranial can cure ADHD.
People with depression have decreased craniosacral impulse rate (kinda like a DO mood ring I guess).
OMM decreases the necessary quantity of medicine needed to treat ailments since it improves lymph flow.


Several times I asked our profs for proof of this and was told several times "I'll get back to you," and they never did. Another time I was told, "It's in a book somewhere but I don't remember which book."

Seems pretty damn sketchy to me.

 

[Northerner]

Just imagine what doctors in one hundred years will say about medicine today. I'd like to see those posts.

They won't be using "posts" to communicate, you dolt. They'll be using a high-tech form of telepathy, where everyone jacks in to a big intraweb mainframe using magnets. Kind of like in the Matrix, except less black clothing because the world of the future will be more optimistic.

That's right - magnets. Magnets, I tell you! Just like Norstilldamus prognostacated.

 

[Taus]

👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

That is my problem exactly.

What drives me nuts is the vast quantity of claims made by OMM instructors and fellows about the wonders of OMM.

For instance in OMM, we were told that:

Cranial can cure ADHD.
People with depression have decreased craniosacral impulse rate (kinda like a DO mood ring I guess).
OMM decreases the necessary quantity of medicine needed to treat ailments since it improves lymph flow.


Several times I asked our profs for proof of this and was told several times "I'll get back to you," and they never did. Another time I was told, "It's in a book somewhere but I don't remember which book."

Seems pretty damn sketchy to me.

if thats really what you've been told and how its been presented.....it would rub me the same way....I've got to admit that our profs focus way more on the somatic treatments....except for an odd lecture every once in a while on visceral stuff....see my post below

 

[FutureNavyDOc]

if thats really what you've been told and how its been presented.....it would rub me the same way....I've got to admit that our profs focus way more on the somatic treatments....except for an odd lecture every once in a while on visceral stuff....see my post below

I almost forgot this one:

Decompressing the occiptal condyles cures colic.



I agree OMM can work for back pain and neck pain as a short term solution, however people who claim it is the end all to cure everything irk me, especially when they're profs and even more so when they claim there is proof for their claims but never offer any nor provide any when asked for despite swearing on all things holy that it exists.

 

[Taus]

I almost forgot this one:

Decompressing the occiptal condyles cures colic.



I agree OMM can work for back pain and neck pain as a short term solution, however people who claim it is the end all to cure everything irk me, especially when they're profs and even more so when they claim there is proof for their claims but never offer any nor provide any when asked for despite swearing on all things holy that it exists.

Whats bolded is all I really care about. I guess I'm fortunate that I don't get the other bull$hit and attitute towards OMM for the most part here. Weighing the pro's and con's of learning OMM.... the above plus awesome musculoskeletal diagnostic skills far outweigh the cons for me...but to each his own...and I could see how much more annoying it would be if you knew you would be going into a field that didn't come anywhere near msk problems.

 

[s42brown]

A.T. Still probably trained D.D. Palmer. Come on a janitor suddenly finds the healing power of manipulation and then starts Chiropractory, while a trained Medical Doctor with an understanding of human anatomy was teaching the same stuff down the road. It's not an insult on chiropractors it just frustrates me that chiropractors give to credit to good old A.T.

 

[Old_Mil]

What drives me nuts is the vast quantity of claims made by OMM instructors and fellows about the wonders of OMM.

For instance in OMM, we were told that:

Cranial can cure ADHD.
People with depression have decreased craniosacral impulse rate (kinda like a DO mood ring I guess).
OMM decreases the necessary quantity of medicine needed to treat ailments since it improves lymph flow...

👍

It's enough to make you want to cringe when OMM cheerleaders start giving lecturers. Just the other day it was, "We are osteopathic physicians and we must use OMM to be consistent with our philosophy." Apparently, I hadn't realized that the MCAT was an admissions test for a monastic order.

 

[the1doc]

a.t. still wasn't a pioneer. osteopathic medicine today is completely different than what a.t. still envisioned. we are basically allopathic docs with a little training in manipulation (which many, many D.Os never use in practice...but they do use a lot of the Rx drugs that old Still was so opposed to...)

was he a quack? it depends on how much you like omt. however, it's safe to say that a.t. still gets more praise than he deserves/deserved. unless you are part of the omt cult.

 

[scpod]

...osteopathic medicine today is completely different than what a.t. still envisioned.

And that makes him NOT a pioneer. He was the one who went looking for scientific evidence when no one else cared. Ummm...the telephone is a lot different today from what Alexander Graham Bell envisioned. Does that mean that HE wasn't a pioneer?

...it's safe to say that a.t. still gets more praise than he deserves/deserved. unless you are part of the omt cult.

No, its "safe" to say that you really need to do a little more research before your next post.

 

[the1doc]

He was the one who went looking for scientific evidence when no one else cared.

You might want to walk away from the OMM cult long enough to do a little research yourself.

Scientists of the 19th century who made more important contributions to medicine than a.t. still include:

Pasteur (vaccinations - ring a bell? or are you too busy doing cranial?)
Rontgen (x-ray)
Einthoven (ECG)
Lister (antiseptics)
Laennec (stethoscope)
Alexander Wood (hypodermic syringe)
Koch (bacteriology)
Bernard, Mendel, Semmelweis....and on and on and on.....

The contributions of these great scientist saved more lives than cranial, omm, and the lymph pump will ever save. It's just a guess, but I'd say they cared too. But if you want to keep worshipping a.t. still, go right ahead.

 

[FutureNavyDOc]

You might want to walk away from the OMM cult long enough to do a little research yourself.

Scientists of the 19th century who made more important contributions to medicine than a.t. still include:

Pasteur (vaccinations - ring a bell? or are you too busy doing cranial?)I thought Pavlov was the bell guy
Rontgen (x-ray)
Einthoven (ECG)
Lister (antiseptics)
Laennec (stethoscope)
Alexander Wood (hypodermic syringe)
Koch (bacteriology)
Bernard, Mendel, Semmelweis....and on and on and on.....

The contributions of these great scientist saved more lives than cranial, omm, and the lymph pump will ever save. It's just a guess, but I'd say they cared too. But if you want to keep worshipping a.t. still, go right ahead.

Can you honestly say that the X-ray, vaccinations, EKG's, and the rest really have saved more lives than sacral rocking?

Resign immediately from your current DO school you heretic!

Besides, every good chiropractor and holistic OMM performing DO knows immunizations cause autism!

 

[iliacus]

Pasteur (vaccinations - ring a bell? or are you too busy doing cranial?)
Rontgen (x-ray)
Einthoven (ECG)
Lister (antiseptics)
Laennec (stethoscope)
Alexander Wood (hypodermic syringe)
Koch (bacteriology)
Bernard, Mendel, Semmelweis....and on and on and on.....

The contributions of these great scientist saved more lives than cranial, omm, and the lymph pump will ever save. It's just a guess, but I'd say they cared too. But if you want to keep worshipping a.t. still, go right ahead.

It's funny because virtually ALL of Semmelweis's peers called him crazy and said that there was no way that THEY the DOCTORS could be spreading disease. It's more a lesson in being careful about what you think you know and what's reality. Only point here...Keep an open mind and don't act like you know it all. If that were the case how come so many people die of cancer and other diseases?...or the ubiquitous "idiopathic" diseases seen in the clinic/hospitals?

 

[FutureNavyDOc]

Keep an open mind and don't act like you know it all. If that were the case how come so many people die of cancer and other diseases?

Clearly it's due to a lack of cranial and lymphatic pumps.

 

[the1doc]

It's funny because virtually ALL of Semmelweis's peers called him crazy and said that there was no way that THEY the DOCTORS could be spreading disease. It's more a lesson in being careful about what you think you know and what's reality. Only point here...Keep an open mind and don't act like you know it all. If that were the case how come so many people die of cancer and other diseases?...or the ubiquitous "idiopathic" diseases seen in the clinic/hospitals?

I'm not saying that OMM has no place. I am merely pointing out that Still's contributions to medicine pale in comparison to other scientists of the 19th century. Yet we (the osteopaths) go out of our way to put old Still on a pedestal...just like members of a cult.

And as far as the soapbox about keeping an "open mind" and "don't act like know it all"...my attitude about OMT after a couple of years of exposure is no different than people who state as a matter of fact that A.T. Still was a pioneer or "one of the greatest thinkers of his time" (Dean of CCOM - 2006). Are these people keeping an open mind? Do they ever take a step back and consider the possibility that maybe A.T. Still was nothing more than a charismatic quack? Or maybe just a disgruntled doc with a few interesting, yet completely whacky ideas?

 

[iliacus]

I'm not saying that OMM has no place. I am merely pointing out that Still's contributions to medicine pale in comparison to other scientists of the 19th century. Yet we (the osteopaths) go out of our way to put old Still on a pedestal...just like members of a cult.

And as far as the soapbox about keeping an "open mind" and "don't act like know it all"...my attitude about OMT after a couple of years of exposure is no different than people who state as a matter of fact that A.T. Still was a pioneer or "one of the greatest thinkers of his time" (Dean of CCOM - 2006). Are these people keeping an open mind? Do they ever take a step back and consider the possibility that maybe A.T. Still was nothing more than a charismatic quack? Or maybe just a disgruntled doc with a few interesting, yet completely whacky ideas?

I completely agree...I drives me nuts the way some in academic medicine overly praise the guy. Sorry I missundestood.

 

[FutureNavyDOc]

It's funny because virtually ALL of Semmelweis's peers called him crazy and said that there was no way that THEY the DOCTORS could be spreading disease.

Big difference, there is a ton of research supporting Semmelweis years later.

 

[jrf331]

I am finding this thread very interesting.

I pray to A.T. on a daily bases; asking for new and better techniques that may cure cancer or improve the lymphatic flow from the great toe. I have yet to receive any response. I have spoken to my Cranial Shaman and she has given me great advise;
Here are the words of a sage osteopath, " Patience my young padiwon, in time you too will receive the force of Still, and one day you too may use the force to cure cancer with the Osteopaths weapon of choice." "the vault hold" Await the vision of A.T. and he will brind this force that will bring peace to the world and unite medicine forever

 

[MossPoh]

He wasn't a "quack"..I mean people were still searching for stuff. Osteopathy isn't scientology...I think we discount him because it seems like an overly magical way of doing things...now. There are plenty of scientist that had tons of things completley wrong but they get one thing spot on and are remembered for that.....The osteopathic route has defintley come a long way....that is for sure.

 

[SubAtomicStringTheory]

You might want to walk away from the OMM cult long enough to do a little research yourself.

Scientists of the 19th century who made more important contributions to medicine than a.t. still include:

Pasteur (vaccinations - ring a bell? or are you too busy doing cranial?)
Rontgen (x-ray)
Einthoven (ECG)
Lister (antiseptics)
Laennec (stethoscope)
Alexander Wood (hypodermic syringe)
Koch (bacteriology)
Bernard, Mendel, Semmelweis....and on and on and on.....

The contributions of these great scientist saved more lives than cranial, omm, and the lymph pump will ever save. It's just a guess, but I'd say they cared too. But if you want to keep worshipping a.t. still, go right ahead.

Hey you forgot Edward Jenner who developed the first vaccine (smallpox). Louis Pasteur created the first vaccine for rabies, but that was later. 😀

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Hey you forgot Edward Jenner who developed the first vaccine (smallpox). Louis Pasteur created the first vaccine for rabies, but that was later. 😀

Damn....you beat me to it.

 

[mitawa]

Just to weight in a little. I believe that while AT Still was not responsible for inventions or physical medical devices that save lives, he helped to introduce and promote techniques that improve quality of live. Medicine involves healing mind body and spirit. Advanced medical diagnostic techniques and instrumentation help to cure and keep patients alive, however there are also patients who still suffer with pain and discomfort that standard diagnostics tests are incapable of measuring and therefore are often discounted as idiopathic (and therefore we get OTC painkillers and other various treatments to lessen those symptoms). My point is that I view OMT as an enhancement to my medical studies. It might not save a life, but it may improve my patient's overall pain/discomfort level which in some cases improves overall health and avoids/delays the onset of more serious health problems. There are times that I fail to see the relevance of things taught in OMM lab, but then I reflect back to my undergrad years. I remember as an undergrad studying unverified/unproven concepts in molecular biology and being annoyed at having to know those random studies/theories. Now as a medical student and after having completed genetics research, I find those theories greeting me in class each day as having been proving to be fact and also having great implications in medicine.

Just remember IT'S ALL RELATIVE, what may not be of use today may become an invaluable asset tomorrow!🙄

 

[AlmostADoc]

Ok....in the 1850-1860's, medicine killed probably as many people as it cured- especially in the U.S..

This turned Still and Palmer to the belief that bone setting and magnetic healing was the cure-all for disease. But where were there statistics to back these claims up? Where are they today? We learn OMM, but I wish these schools tried to win over or convince their students w/ statistical analyses and p-values rather than spurious indoctrination. I truly love OMM, yet would feel 100 times more comfortable w/ it if I knew it was scientifically substantiated. And I am not talking about some study conducted by a third year med student on dogs showing the benefits of Lymphatic techniques.

I mean real science w/ people being treated in Group 1) w/ drugs and/or physical therapy 2) drugs and/ or OMM and whatever other criteria you want to use. But high powered studies.

Since the late 1800's, thanks largely to German Medicine, medicine has become more science and less snake oil application. Osteopathich medicine caught on and overthrew the "bone healers" and became mainstream medicine.

However, we really still need a scientific justification of teaching OMM. If not, it should not be trumpeted as a mysterious form of healing and rather a complement to anatomy where the student is allowed to view and palpate a live anatomy specimen.

Your thoughts?

Have you heard of I.M. Korr, PhD? He seriously researched the biochemical and physiologic mechanisms behind somatic dysfunction and OMT. His findings were clearly in support of the advantages of OMT. I suggest you look up this researcher's works to fully understand his findings. I know there have been other PhDs and DOs to substantiate OMT, but from my understanding, Dr. Korr's research has had some of the most significant impact.