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The D. O. 's: A social history of osteopathic medicine
Gevitz, N. [14]

Journal: Unpublished PhD thesis The University of Chicago, Date: 1980/01, Pages: 309, type of study: review

Full text    (https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/pqdtprof)

Keywords:

A. T. Still [50]
history [231]
narrative review [39]

Abstract:

This dissertation seeks to provide the first comprehensive portrait of the osteopathic profession, tracing its growth from the last quarter of the nineteenth century through to its present role in American health care. It focuses upon the impact of ideas and institutions in promoting its initial development as well as in effecting subsequent changes within its belief system, educational program, and scope of practice. The first chapter looks at the career of the founder of the movement, Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917), a rural midwestern physician who in the 1860s became disenchanted with orthodox medicine. The primary aim of this section is to identify and document the full complement of intellectual influences upon his theory that most diseases were caused either directly or indirectly by vertebral sublaxations called “osteopathic lesions“ and that elimination of these lesions would remove pathology manifested elsewhere in the body. Chapter II, entitled “The Missouri Mecca,“ covers the early years of the first school of osteopathy founded by Still in 1892 in the small city of Kirksville, which for a time constituted a veritable healing shrine. Chapter III, “In the Field,“ examines the vicissitudes of Still's early graduates notably their attempts to explain their system to new and prospective patients, their methods of advertising, their confrontations with orthodox physicians in the courts, their struggle to secure legislative protection, and their establishment of other osteopathic schools throughout the country. The fourth chapter--“Structure and Function“--deals with the efforts of the American Osteopathic Association, founded in 1897, to coordinate and oversee the various educational, legal, ethical, and research concerns of the movement, which laid the groundwork for professionalization. “Expanding the Scope“--the fifth chapter--details the process by which all diagnostic and therapeutic modalities employed by orthodox M.D. physicians came to be adopted by D.O.'s and integrated into the curriculum of each school. Chapter VI, entitled “The Push for Higher Standards,“ looks at the effort by osteopathic colleges, beginning in the mid-1930s, to bring the overall quality of their educational program towards a level of equivalency with M.D.-granting institutions. Chapter VII concerns “A Question of Identity.“ Although D.O.'s broadened their scope of practice and edged ever closer to their counterparts in terms of curriculum content and standards, their prestige remained significantly lower than that of the M.D.'s, producing status inconsistency. Chapter VIII, “The California Merger,“ delves into the particular set of problems faced by D.O.'s in this state which led an overwhelming number to agree to their amalgamation with orthodox physicians in 1961-62. Chapter IX--“Reaffirmation and Expansion“--examines the sociological factors which enabled osteopathic medicine to survive the California crisis and increase the number of its colleges from five to fourteen between 1968 and 1978. The final chapter, “The Present and the Future,“ looks at longstanding unresolved problems facing osteopathy; some new ones caused by its recent rapid growth; and its overall prospects in the coming years.

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