Seminar 1:
The main topics covered in the seminar include the following:
• Using historical method to distinguish an historical fact from a probability or possibility.
• History of the environment in the US leading up to Still’s discovery of Osteopathy
• Recognizing the leading osteopathic historians and history resources.
• Essentials of studying systems in the context of their environments.
• Biographies of Still, Littlejohn, and Sutherland.
• Still’s writings and development of osteopathy as they relate to national issues of his time, including several wars fought in the US, slavery, Andrew Carnegie, the Industrial Revolution, the railroad expansion, the Indian Relocation Act, the Missouri Compromise, poetry, spiritualism, and much more.
• The influence of medicine and medical therapeutics on Still’s development of osteopathy, including heroic medicine, magnetic healing, massage, bone setting, and medical democracy.
• Still’s practical approach with respect to bones, organs, mesenteries, fluids, fascia, and nerves.
• The influential friends that kept Still in Kirksville.
• The history of the American School of Osteopathy from its 1892 inception until 1900.
• The growth and waning of osteopathy’s popularity in Kirksville.
• The Flexner Report
• The competition among schools of osteopathy that led to DO/MD training equivalency.
• The political battles between orthodox medicine and osteopathy and between the two osteopathic factions, broad-based and lesion-based osteopaths.
• The California Merger.
• The proper chronology of osteopathy’s and chiropractic’s founding.
• The deeper meaning behind the phrase, find it, fix it, and leave it alone.
• The meaning of Still’s Triune Nature of Man
• Still’s relationship to Nature
• The history of osteopathic principles.
• Thoughts on osteopathic philosophy.
Seminar 2:
Day 1
• am — Biography of William Garner Sutherland; Theory with a colourful presentation with more than 150 rarely seen photographs related to Sutherland.
• pm — Significance of Sutherland’s biography and philosophy; Theory; Review of how his environment influenced his thoughts and writing, which is key to understanding him.
Day 2
• am — Types of patients seen by Sutherland; Medical theory; Review of the Great Pandemic; Mindset and healing approaches in the United States during the first half of the 20th century.
• pm — Overview of Sutherland’s concept of “anterior tensity” and how it affects the physiology of the body; Approaches are demonstrated and practiced.
• pm — Techniques for anterior tensity; Practice; Continuation of anterior tensity approaches.
Day 3
• am — Sutherland’s early approaches to the ribs are demonstrated and practiced.
• pm — Sutherland’s early descriptions of his cervical and cranial approaches are demonstrated and practiced.
Day 4
• am — Cranial approaches are continued; Demonstration and practice.