AMERICAN ADJUSTMENTS
NATURE AFFORDS A UNIVERSAL MEANS OF
HEALING AND PRESERVING MEN.
Anton Mesmer
| It seems that in every society there have been and are to this day, lines of witches and wizards, healers and shamans, bonesetters and magnetizers. They have been largely self taught, brought up in “ordained” families, or inspired from above to follow lives dedicated to aiding those in need. In America, one line of healing followed the trail of animal magnetism. Mesmer’s Societies of Harmony never took root, but magnetism appeared across the ocean here and there through the likes of Charles Poyen who deemed himself the “Professor of Animal Magnetism.” Poyen, who was a pupil of the Marquis de Puysegur – one of Mesmer’s first and foremost students, traveled to New York from Paris in 1836 and aroused great interest by the practice and exposition of the principles of mesmerism. His meetings had the character of religious revivals in which Poyen demonstrated remarkable healings of both physical and mental ailment. He eventually trained new magnetizers seeking to form a “core” of practitioners in the United States. Poyen was followed by Robert Collyer from Britain who was a teacher of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. Quimby himself turned mesmerism in a different direction most especially through work with his patient Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Then there was Andrew Jackson Davis – The Poughkeepsie Seer – who was born in 1826. He grew up in a fairly poor household —he had very little in the way of education, other than a short stint at a school in Hyde Park in the 1830s, when his family moved there for a time. At a young age, Davis started to experience things that he could not quite comprehend. He wrote in his autobiography a chapter entitled, “I yield to the mystic power,” detailing his thoughts when he first discovered his gift: “I have a body, a tangible body – I reside in the form.” When Davis realized that he could magnetize people, he began his work of performing healings on various clients, as well as opening a medical clinic with a partner. By 1845, he had begun giving lectures, proclaiming that spiritualism was a device to make men “happier, and wiser, and better.” In his work he would sit in a trance and communicate with spirits in order to learn about everything from love and health to history and the future. His first book was published in 1847, to be followed by 30 others. His “magnus opus” appeared in six volumes as The Great Harmonia.  From The
Great Harmonia by Andrew Jackson Davis, v. 1.
1868.
Disease is a strange and unnatural process by which to subdue and purify, and bring the soul into conjunction with the superior and eternal; but it is a revolutionizing ordeal, and in this sense should ever be regarded as a blessing, and sustained with patience and composure. Physicians must cure disease or discord by producing harmony in the human constitution. Their pursuits should be essentially prophylactical. I know, by interior observation, that disease is not a thing, is not matter to be removed, but it is a condition to be altered. Therefore, I also know that any system, which regards and treats disease as something to be overcome, to be fought down, to be bled, vomited, or purged out of the organization, and its foundation deep in the error of antiquity. That vital magnetism and electricity are the divine elements of spiritual (not moral) nourishment, and are the mediums through which the spirit acts upon the body; and that, to restore harmony or health, the prime-moving principle in the body must be addressed by and through identical mediums or elements. Let it not he supposed that I am opposed to the alleviation of the diseased and suffering; on the contrary, I feel deeply impressed with the holiness of that science or philosophy which has for its ultimate object the alleviation of human discord and distress; but I am not in favor of treating effects instead of causes, nor of treating man in opposition to those immutable laws which control the harmonious Universe. O, that patients could place the same unbounded, submissive, child-like confidence in the indwelling Divinity of nature, that they place in their physicians! The only true medicines in Nature for existing diseases, and the only true and divine elements which, by operating magnetically upon the body through the spiritual principle, unfold and advance individual health and happiness, are the following: Dress — Food — Water — Air — Light — Electricity — and Magnetism. These agents and elements are emanations from the fountain of Universal Nature. The object to be gained, in curing or preventing disease, is the establishment and perpetuation of an equilibrium in the electrical mediums and moving forces which permeate and actuate the body; and this can not be accomplished except through the instrumentality of the Spiritual Principle. The spiritual principle must be made to rise superior to the dependent system, and in this position, it must exert its health-giving, magnetic, and harmonizing influence upon the various organs, nerves, and muscles, which are submitted to its control. If the reader is true to Nature (which is being true to himself and to the Divine Mind) he can improve the condition of his neighbor, and heal individuals of many apparently incurable maladies. Let all aspire to this glorious state of spiritual exaltation! The “lay-ing on of hands” is a pure and effectual method in the curing of disease. Illuminated minds in all ages of the world have systematically and scientifically employed vital magnetism to quiet and benefit the sick, the lame, the blind, the insane, and the otherwise afflicted. Let us become as wise and profound in this department of human interest as we are in many other things; this is the surest method of overcoming disease.  From The
DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America by Norman
Gevitz, 2019, and
Dr. Paul Caster, the Magnetic Healer by Phyllis Hansen. A little over 60 miles due north past Kirksville, MO (future home of osteopathy) — Ottumwa, Iowa — lived the most famous “magnetic healer” of the Midwest — Paul Caster — who had called Ottumwa home since 1869. Undoubtedly, Still had heard of him through his circulars or by word of mouth. Barely literate, Caster discovered he had a special God-given talent of healing through his hands. Chronically ill patients throughout the Midwest and elsewhere travelled to Ottumwa to receive his ministrations, making it a Mecca for invalids. In 1871, due to the demand for his services from out-oftowners, Caster built a large “magnetic” infirmary and hotel consisting of 98 rooms that catered to his clients. In 1876, the Banner of Light published a glowing account of his activities, noting “he has a wagon load of crutches, canes, and various kinds of metallic skeletons (surgical appliances) from which he has rescued his patients and sent them home without them.” Caster’s success as a “magnetic healer” may have provided A.T. Still with inspiration and hope as to what he might accomplish. In 1899, Caster made published claim that treated Still as a patient, that the latter adopted “his preceptor’s system,” and that Caster encouraged Still to establish his own practice Indeed, upon arriving in Kirksville, Still, along with 2 business associates, announced they would soon “build an infirmary.” Caster stood 6-10 and conveyed an enormous presence and equally large hands which migh have created sufficient shock to send sick applicants into remission. Dr. Paul claimed to “have the gift” to diagnose and treat sufferers of pain and disease from 1867 until his death in 1881. Still, he became a legend merely with his hands, his faith, and his presence. Faith on the part of the sufferer was supposedly not necessary for his treatment to be effective. Although Paul Caster “possessed the gift,” he frankly admitted he did not know the source and meaning of his subtle power. His father possessed it and apparently the son inherited it. Some observers sought to explain the Casters phenomenal abilities as an abnormally high degree of animal magnetism.  From The
DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America by Norman
Gevitz, 2019.
A.T. STILL, THE American Magnetic Healer Andrew Taylor Still became the first osteopath after starting his career as a Spiritualist as well as the “Lightning Bonesetter.” As an itinerant healer, he became a charismatic figure who attracted all manner of sick and injured seeking relief from their ills. Still eventually fused elements of both magnetic healing and bonesetting into a single coherent doctrine. The effects of many diseases, as magnetic healing stressed, were due to the obstruction or imbalance of the fluids. But Still believed this state was caused by misplaced bones, particularly of the spinal column, which interfered with nerve supply regulating blood flow. Thus he gave birth to his own distinctive system of manual treatment. A.T. Still began medical work as an allopathic physician, although he had no formal training. He found his place under guidance of his father who was a minister as well as a medic. Upon losing three of his children to meningitis, Still devoted himself to find a better way! A large part of his study became that of an anatomist. Still plundered Indian burial grounds and dissected dozens if not hundreds of bodies which he found there. Dr. Still proceeded from dead Indian bodies to develop his osteopathic medicine based on the belief that the Creator had “done a perfect work.” His attendance and treatment of patients with appendicitis was foundational to development of osteopathy. For 25 years, he have proceeded to treat appendicitis “without pain and misery to the patient, and have given permanent relief in all the cases that have come to me. With the diagnosis of doctors and surgeons that appendicitis was the malady, and the choice of relief was between the knife and death, or possibly both, many such cases have come for osteopathic treatment, and examination has revealed in every case that there has been previous injury to some set of spinal nerves, caused by jars, strains, or falls. Every case of appendicitis and renal or gall-stones can be traced to some such cause.” ~~~
From The Letters of Mark Twain, 1906. Well, it does really turn out that Dr. Still, in the middle of Kansas, in a village, began to experiment in 1874, only five years after Kellgren began the same work obscurely in the village of Gotha, in Germany. Dr. Still seems to be an honest man; therefore I am persuaded that Kellgren moved him to his experiments by Mental Telegraphy across six hours of longitude, without need of a wire. By the time Still began to experiment, Kellgren had completed his development of the principles of his system and established himself in a good practice in London — 1874 — and was in good shape to convey his discovery to Kansas, Mental Telegraphically. . . . I cannot help feeling rather inordinately proud of America for the gay and hearty way in which she takes hold of any new thing that comes along and gives it a first rate trial. Many an ass in America is getting a deal of benefit out of X-Science’s new exploitation of an age-old healing principle — faith, combined with the patient’s imagination — let it boom along! I have no objection. Let them call it by what name they choose, so long as it does helpful work among the class which is numerically vastly the largest bulk of the human race, i.e. the fools, the idiots, the pudd’nheads. We do not guess, we know that 9 in 10 of the species are pudd’nheads. We know it by various evidences; and one of them is, that for ages the race has respected (and almost venerated) the physician’s grotesque system — the emptying of miscellaneous and harmful drugs into a person's stomach to remove ailments which in many cases the drugs could not reach at all; in many cases could reach and help, but only at cost of damage to some other part of the man; and in the remainder of the cases the drug either retarded the cure, or the disease was cured by nature in spite of the nostrums. The doctor’s insane system has not only been permitted to continue its follies for ages, but has been protected by the State and, made a close monopoly — an infamous thing, a crime against a free-man’s proper right to choose his own assassin or his own method of defending his body against disease and death. And yet at the same time, with curious and senile inconsistency, the State has allowed the man to choose his own assassin — in one detail — the patent-medicine detail — making itself the protector of that perilous business, collecting money out of it, and appointing no committee of experts to examine the medicines and forbid them when extra dangerous. Really, when a man can prove that he is not a jackass, I think he is in the way to prove that he is no legitimate member of the race. I have by me a list of 52 human ailments — common ones — and in this list I count 19 which the physician’s art cannot cure. But there isn’t one which Osteopathy or Kellgren cannot cure, if the patient comes early. Fifteen years ago I had a deep reverence for the physician and the surgeon. But 6 months of closely watching the Kellgren business has revolutionized all that, and now I have neither reverence nor respect for the physician’s trade, and scarcely any for the surgeon’s. I am convinced that of all quackeries, the physician’s is the grotesquest and the silliest. And they know they are shams and humbugs. They have taken the place of those augurs who couldn’t look each other in the face without laughing. ~~~
From History of Osteopathy by E.R. Booth, 1906. H. M. Still: “In the year of 1884-85, after reading anatomy and physiology with father, I accompanied him to Hannibal to assist him in the practice of his new profession. At that time they called him ‘the Lightning Bone Setter.’ Here is where he had some wonderful cures. Patients came to him from all parts of the country. I believe I would be safe in saying that in the six months we practiced at Hannibal we accumulated a dray load of plaster paris casts, crutches, and all classes of surgical appliances. We went from Hannibal to Nevada, Missouri, where the State Insane Asylum is located. Here we made fully a hundred cures; some most wonderful. I remember one very interesting case. This lady had been in the asylum for several years. It seemed that she had lost her mind suddenly while playing a piano. Father examined her neck and found a lesion of the atlas. In less time that I have taken in the telling, the girl was as rational as ever. Strange to say, the first thing she said was, ‘Where is my piano and music?’ She was anxious to finish the piece she had started playing three years before.” H.M. Still: “On account of my being the bad boy of the family, father almost always took me with him on trips to the country. I was of a very nervous and very sensitive temperament. Consequently, when I heard anybody rebuking or making fun of my father’s theory, or treatment, it was like shaking a red rag at a bull, or touching off the fuse of a charge of dynamite; it simply meant fight on my part. Many a time on the streets I have heard the boys say: ‘There goes that old crazy crank.’ These boys’ words simply ignited the fuse which caused a volcanic explosion from me. That boy either apologized to me or one or the other of us took a thrashing. It was not the boys alone who talked about father, but men and women as well. Many a time I have heard the men make the same remark as the boys. “Spending most all of my time with father, as a boy, I have been in a position to watch the growth of Osteopathy from its infancy to the present. I was much impressed with the most I saw father doing every day of my life. One day, when I was about ten years old, I went with him to the country to see a patient. On our way back, we saw an old gentleman sitting out in his front yard almost choking to death, suffering with the dreadful disease called asthma, struggling to the last ounce of his strength for the breath of life. Father stopped and went over to see the suffering man. He said: ‘Hello, Joe! What are you trying to do?’ He answered, ‘Make a die of it, I guess, Doctor.’ So father began to examine and manipulate his spine, and in a few minutes time the man was as easy as ever he had been in his life. The man was really frightened at the rapidity of his relief. I will never, as long as I live, forget the language that man used. He said in a frightened tone of voice, ‘My God! Doctor, what have you done to me? My lungs are as free as ever they were in my life.’ About two months later father met the gentleman, and he said that he had not even had symptoms of a return of the asthma. The poor fellow was dumfounded, and from that day to this he has never had asthma. It was always a mystery to Joe what cured him. I guess father even was really guessing just what nerve was tied up in the lesion. This is but one instance out of hundreds.” ~~~
From The Lengthening Shadow of Dr. Andrew Taylor Still by Arthur Hildreth, 1942. One day an elderly German farmer came into Dr. Longpre's office and asked him if he would go to the state hospital and examine his son. The boy had been confined there following an accident on the farm. He had been sent out to the fields with a team to gather corn. In jumping down from the wagon his foot slipped and he fell heavily on his shoulder and neck. From that time on he became mentally unbalanced until it was necessary to put him in the Kankakee hospital for the insane. Dr. Longpre replied that he would be happy to examine him but he doubted whether the superintendent of that institution would allow an osteopathic physician to examine a patient there. His assumption proved to be correct – the superintendent refused to admit Dr. Longpre, an osteopathic physician, to examine a patient in the institution. This discrimination exists even today in many of our state hospitals. It is to be remembered that all state hospitals are supported by taxation of the people, yet this farmer whose son he wished to have examined by an osteopathic physician was refused that courtesy. Think of it! Weigh this matter carefully and you will realize the injustice done to one who had undoubtedly contributed through taxation to the support of that very institution where his son was confined. This farmer was refused the privilege of having an osteopathic physician treat his son, and yet the best authorities, from the “old school” medical standpoint, tell us that they have no treatment for insanity. It is my opinion that tile taxpayers should be aroused to the situation and demand the right to have their loved ones who are confined in state institutions examined and treated by the physician of their choice, no matter what system he represents, just the same as they have the right under the provision of the constitution of this great country to select the church and the religion they believe in. My friend Dr. Longpre went on to state in his letter that the father took the boy for a ride in his car and brought him to Dr. Longpre's office. The doctor examined him and found a bad lesion in the spine in the neck region and another in the upper dorsal area. He corrected the neck lesion and worked on the other lesion in that first treatment. Then the father took the boy back to the hospital. In a few days the father received a letter from the superintendent of the state hospital telling him he did not know what had occurred, but the boy was much improved. Soon the father again went to the institution and took his son for another ride and another treatment was given by Dr. Longpre. Several days after this second trip he received another letter from the superintendent of the hospital to the effect that his son was practically well, and that it would be safe for him to return home. The doctors at the hospital could not understand what had brought about the change. The father took his boy away but before taking him home Dr. Longpre treated him once more. The boy made a complete recovery.  The Still-Hildreth Sanatorium The story of the Sanatorium in Macon, Missouri, reads like a modern fairy tale. Still-Hildreth was founded upon the genius of the original osteopath Andrew Taylor Still and guided by two of his sons, Charles and Harry, and one of his student, Arthur Hildreth. The Still-Hildreth Sanatorium had impressive low-cost successes with the depressed, demented and psychotic long before psychoactive drugs became widely used. Hildreth tried to get to the bottom of things while reaching for cures: “To what are nervous and mental breakdowns due? This cannot be answered in a single word. The one word, however which comes nearest, is ‘strain’ – physical strain, mental strain. Mental overwork, grief, worry, religious excitement, etc., physical overwork, injury to head or spine, exhaustion from hemorrhage, operations, childbirth, etc., acute and chronic infections, and diseases of metabolism, are causes. “Physiological crises, such as puberty and menopause, inheritance of nervous instability, toxins or poisons, whether taken as drugs, formed by bacteria, absorbed from sluggish bowels, or formed in the tissues and retained in the blood through failure of elimination – all these are possible factors the production of mental disorders. Of these, heredity is just a predisposing cause. Nervous instability is all that is inherited. Probably every case is the cumulative result of a number of causes acting in concert. “Break into the circle of causes. Remove all that are removable. Leave the rest to nature. Thus assisted, she is usually able to ‘come back.’ Such is the philosophy of treatment of Still-Hildreth.” The regimen at the Still-Hildreth Sanatorium was drugless for most of its years from 1914 to 1968. While also functioning as a local hospital, the Sanatorium consisted of grounds of 270 acres with a main building, an annex, a gymnasium, a pool, a large sun parlor, a library, a music room, two lakes, a boathouse, tennis courts, stables, an archery range, vegetable gardens, an orchard, a greenhouse, and a dairy. The mission of the Sanatorium was to CURE patients of psychiatric disorders, whereas many contemporary and present-day institutions for the mentally ill focus on combatting symptoms with pharmaceuticals and restraints. The atmosphere of the institution promoted cleanliness, courtesy, respect, rest, good food, exercise, group activities, and socialization. The surroundings were cheerful and homey, the treatment dignified. Activity, nature, care, and touch via Still’s Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment – were provided in a supportive and inexpensive environment. Patients received OMT at least 3 times a week, and it was described as the “basis of the cure of the patients.” The Sanatorium method was able to return up to 70 percent of patients to full lives in a matter of weeks.  From
Chiropractic in America, J. Stuart Moore, 1993.
Daniel David Palmer had a varied career before developing Chiropractic in Iowa. He worked as a schoolteacher and grocer and spent time as a horticulturist and beekeeper. Palmer grew up among Spiritualists and Magnetists. He was said to have encountered A.T. Still on one or more occasions. Exposed to bonesetters as well as magnetizers, D.D. Palmer inevitably became a student of the magnetic healer Paul Caster in Ottumwa. He took to magnetic work in a grand way, devoting himself to developing his skills and a method of healing which he eventually taught to others. Transcendentalism, spiritualism, harmonialism, and vitalism were fundamental to his doctrine. He recognized that magnetism was a part of man and that it can be healing and life-giving, imparting vital and nerve force. To him Innate Intelligence resulted in vital force and spiritual energy expressing in organic creation. Naturally telepathic and sensitive, Palmer “witnessed miraculous cures for 25 years, first from magnetic healing and then from chiropractic. He realized that there were principles at work that could not be explained by the mechanistic perspective, that the parts worked together in a unique organization to bestow life and health.” Circa 1895, D.D. Palmer opened his “Magnetic Cure and Infirmary” in downtown Davenport, Iowa. Treating a wide range of ailments, he developed a successful practice. From
“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” by D.D. Palmer, 1910.
“In that first adjustment given Harvey Lillard in September 1895, was the principle from which I developed the science of Chiropractic. In that adjustment originated the art of replacing vertebrae. In the succeeding fifteen years, I have endeavored to develop from that demonstrated fact, such principles, together with the art of adjusting, as constitute the science of Chiropractic. “Harvey Lillard, a janitor, in the Ryan Block, where I had my office, had been so deaf for 17 years that he could not hear the racket of a wagon on the street or the ticking of a watch. I made inquiry as to the cause of his deafness and was informed that when he was exerting himself in a cramped, stooping position, he felt something give way in his back and immediately became deaf. An examination showed a vertebra racked from its normal position. I reasoned that if that vertebra was replaced, the man’s hearing should be restored. With this object in view, a half-hour’s talk persuaded Mr. Lillard to allow me to replace it. I racked it into position by using the spinous process as a lever and soon the man could hear as before. There was nothing ‘accidental’ about this, as it was accomplished with an object in view, and the result expected was obtained. There was nothing ‘crude’ about this adjustment; it was specific, so much so that no Chiropractor has equaled it.” |
The Great Physician
Love Heals
“Even as there is only one nature, one life, one health,
there is, only one disease, one remedy, one healing.”
Mesmer
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