THE OSTEOPATHIC PROPAGANDA.
Wonderful Growth Claimed to Prove Merit--Osteopathy is Rational
Physio-Therapy--Growth is in Exact Proportion to Advertising
Received--Booklets and Journals for Gratuitous
Distribution--Osteopathy Languishes or Flourishes by Patent Medicine
Devices--Circular Letter from Secretary of American Osteopathic
Association--Boosts by Governors and Senators--The Especial Protege of
Authors--Mark Twain--Opie Reed--Emerson Hough--Sam Jones--The
Orificial Surgeon--The M.D. Seeking Job as "Professor"--The Lure of
"Honored Doctor" with "Big Income"--No Competition.
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:
"Gentlemen: Since using your journals more patients have come to me
than I could treat, many of them coming from neighboring towns. Quite
a number have had to go home without being treated, leaving their
names so that they could be notified later, as I can get to them. Your
booklets bring them O. K."
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:
"Now, Doctor, we feel that you have the success of Osteopathy at
heart, and if you realize the activity and complete organization of
the American Medical Association and their efforts to curb our
limitations, and do not become a member of this Association, which
stands opposed to the efforts of the big monopoly, we must believe
that you are not familiar with the earnestness of the A. O. A. and its
efforts. We must work in harmonious accord and with an organized
purpose. _When we rest on our oars the death knell begins to sound._
Can you not see that unless you co-operate with your
fellow-practitioners in this national effort you are _sounding your
own limitations_?"
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 protege 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.