A. T. Still

“ A fact may and often does stay before our eyes for all time powerful in truth, but we heed not its lessons. Instances, at least a few, would not be amiss at this time. Electricity, the most powerful force known, was never able with all its works to get the attention of man's thoughts, more than to call it thunder and lightning, and let it pass from his mind from time to time, till brighter ages woke up a Franklin, Edison, Morse and others who heeded its useful lessons enough to make application of its powers for its force and speed. ”

“ To a philosopher such questions as this must arise: Has the appendix at its entrance a sphincter muscle similar in action to that of the rectum and œsophagus? Has it the power to contract and dilate?—contract and shorten in its length and eject all substances when the nerves are in a normal condition? And where is the nerve that failed to execute the expulsion of any substance that may enter the cavity of the appendix? Has God been so forgetful as to leave the appendix in such condition as to receive foreign bodies without preparing it by contraction or otherwise to throw out such substances? ”

“ Thus to obtain good results, we must blend ourselves with, and travel in harmony with nature's truths. When this great machine man, ceases to move in all its parts, which we call death, the explorers knife discovers no mind, no motion. He simply finds formulated matter with no motor to move it, with no mind to direct it. He can trace the channels through which the fluids have circulated, he can find the relation of parts to other parts; in fact by the knife, he can expose to view the whole machinery that once was wisely active. ”

“ An Osteopath feels bad to have to hunt cause for diseases, and not know how to start out to find the mechanical cause. He feels that the people expect more than guessing of an Osteopath. He feels that he must put his hand on the cause and prove what he says by what he does, that he will not get off by the feeble minded trash of stale habits that go with doctors of medicine, and by his knowledge he must show his ability to go beyond the musty bread of symptomatology and water his patients made, from the cider of the ripe apples from the tree of knowledge. ”

“ Every expulsive stroke of the heart throws into line armed and equipped for duty thousands and millions of operators, whose duties are to inspect, repair injuries and construct anew if need be from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. With the best eye of reason we see but dimly into the breast of man which contains the heart, the wonder of man and the secret of life. ”

“ Thus we can do no more than feed and trust the laws of life as nature gives them to man. We must arrange our bodies in such true lines that ample nature can select and associate by its definite measures, weights and choices of kinds, that which can make all fluids needed for our bodily uses, from the crude blood to the active flames of life, as seen when marshalled for the duties of that stands and obey the edicts of the mind of the infinite. ”

“ When we examine a person paralyzed on one side, why do we find this bread of life in such great quantities on the table and not consumed? Has not one-half of the brain and the nerves of that whole side, limbs and all, lost their power of digestion? Is hemiplegia a dyspepsia of the nerves of nutriment of the brain and organs of that side? If so we have some foundation on which to build an answer why this wax is not consumed and is dried up in the ears of the parylytic. The answer would be that nutrition is suspended. ”

“ Has not your acquaintance with the human body opened your mind's eye to observe that in the laboratory of the human body, the most wonderful chemical results are being accomplished every day, minute and hour of your life? Can that laboratory be running in good order and tolerate the forming of a gall or bladder stone? Does not the body generate acids, alkalies, substances and fluids necessary to wash out all impurities? ”

“ With this fountain of life-saving water, provided by nature to wash away impurities as they accumulate in our bodies, would it not be great stupidity in us to see a human being burn to death by the fires of fever, or die from asphyxia, by allowing bad or dead lymph, albumen or any substance to load down the powers of nature to keep the blood washed to normal purity? ”

“ This life is surely too short to solve the uses of the fascia in animal forms. It penetrates even its own finest fibers to supply and assist its gliding elasticity. Just a thought of the completeness and universality in all parts, even though you turn the visions of your mind to follow the infinitely fine nerves. There you see the fascia, and in your wonder and surprise, you exclaim, "Omnipresent in man and all other living beings of the land and sea." ”

“ Like a thirsty herd of camels, the whole nerve system, sensory, motor, nutrient, voluntary and involuntary; this herd of sappers or hungry nerves seems to be in sufficient quantities and numbers to consume all blood and cause the philosopher to ask the question: "Is not the labor of the artery complete when it has fed the hungry nerves?" Is he not justified in the conclusion that the nerves do gestate and send forth all substances that are applied by nature in the construction of man? ”

“ We can analyze material bodies but we have to stop at the life line for more knowledge. Our boats have been in port over 6000 years, waiting for knowledge about the whats and whys of life, until barnacles of ignorance have accumulated to such thickness that the conchologist has called that cake of shells "allopathy" which weighed anchor and turned to the great sea of human credulity to expound, with nothing but conjectures to offer. He toots his fog-horn in all lands and on all seas, and says, "age before reason." Thus one generation blindly follows another. ”

“ Before you leave that wisely constructed neck, I want to press and imprint on your minds in the strongest terms that the wisest anatomist, and physiologist, the oldest and most successful Osteopath knows only enough of the neck, and its wondrous system of nerves, blood and muscles and its relation to all above and below it, to say, "From everlasting to everlasting thou art great, O Lord God Almighty!" ”

“ Other great questions come to haunt the mind with joy and admiration, and we can see all the beauties of life on exhibition by that great power with which the fascia is endowed. The soul of man with all the streams of pure living water seems to dwell in the fascia of his body. ”

“ From this room of anatomy you are conducted to the room of histology, in which the eye is aided by powerful microscopes and made acquainted with the smallest arteries of the human body, which in life are of the greatest known importance, remembering that in the room of histology you are still studying anatomy, and what that machinery can and does execute every day, hour, and minute of life. ”

“ But the fascia is the ground in which all causes of death do the destruction of life. Every view we take, a wonder appears. Here we find a place for the white corpuscles building anew and giving strength to throw impurities from the body by tubes that run from the skin to tanks of useful fluids, that would heap up and are no longer of use in the body. No doubt nerves exist in the fascia, that change the fluid to gas, and force it through the spongy and porous system as a delivery by the vital chain of wonders, that go on all the time to keep nerves wholly pure. ”

“ As one delves deeper and deeper into the machinery and exacting laws of life, he beholds works and workings of contented laborers of all parts of the one common whole—the great shafts and pillars of an engine working to the fullness of the meaning of perfection. ”

“ Who says heat is not a union of the human gases with oxygen and other substances as they pass out of the excretory system. By what force do parts of the engine of life move? If by the motor power of electricity, how fast must the heart or life current run to ignite the gasolene of the body and set a person on fire and burn to fever heat? ”

“ Is it not true that nature makes water in great quantities often for special cases or conditions, for relief purposes, such as in asiatic cholera, cholera morbus, chills and fever; when the contents of stomach, bowels and skin run off many gallons of water, running through sheet and mattress and on floor, not from kidneys but skin. Is it not plain to the man of reason that the two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, do unite in the lungs, form water and give supply to this great river of water that washes life out in but a few hours in cases of cholera and other diseases. ”

“ We can now talk around and all over the earth by the power of the dreaded thunder and lightning. By it we travel, by it we see at night, by it we search on land and sea for friend or foe; in fact, it is dreaded no more but sought, used and loved by all who know of its uses in civil life. Thus our enemy has become our footstool. ”

“ We know it builds up heaps of flesh, but how, is the question that leads us to honor the unknowable law of life, by which it does the work of its mysterious construction of all forms found in the parts of man. In all our efforts to learn what it is, what it is made of, and what enters it as life and gives it the building powers with that intelligence it displays in building, that we see in daily observation, is to us such an incomprehensible wonder, that with the "sacred writers" we are constrained to say, Great is the mystery of "Godliness." ”

“ The opposite opinion has had full sway for twenty centuries at least, and man has by habit, long usage, and ignorance so adjusted his mind to submit to customs of the great past that should he try, without previous training, to reason and bring his mind to such altitude of thought of the greatness and wisdom of the infinite, he might become insane or fall back in a stupor, and exist only as a living mental blank in the great ocean of life, where beings dwell without minds to govern their actions. ”

“ When Harvey solved by his powers of reason a knowledge of the circulation of the blood, he only reached the banks of the river of life. He saw that the heads and mouths of the rivers of blood begin and end in the heart, to do the mysterious works of constructing man. ”

“ We will examine the opening through which food passes to stomach. We will carefully examine the passage or opening for nerve supply to the abdomen below, to run this great system of chemistry, which is producing the various kinds of substances necessary to the hard and soft parts of the body. We must know the nerve supply of the lymphatics, womb, liver, kidneys, pancreas, the generative organs, what they are, what they do, and what are demanded of them, before we are able to feed our own minds from the cup that contains the essence of reason as expressed from the tree of life. ”

“ But as the beautiful works of nature stand to-day, and in all time past, fully able by the evidence it holds before the eye and mind of reason, that all beings great and small came by the law of cause and effect, are we not bound to work by the laws of cause, if we wish an effect? ”

“ A knowledge of his advent might be profitable. The unwritten history of the human races with the genius or lack of genius, might to us be an open book of knowledge. As it is not supposable that the mind of man has just become observingly active in the last few centuries, absolute evidence of purer and deeper reason than we have been able to present, stand recorded on the faces of many valuable "lost arts" which we have never been able to equal. Is it not very reasonable to suppose that the powers of mind have wonderfully degenerated from some cause? ”

“ As we dip our cups deeper and deeper into the ocean of thought we feel that the solution of life and health is close to the field of the telescope of our mental search lights, and soon we will find the road to health so plainly written that the wayfaring man cannot err though he be a fool. ”

“ An Osteopath who does not understand the general law of tumefaction of the whole system is not excusable from the fact that tumefaction, disease and death are so plainly written on the face of all diseases that the blind need not have eyes to see, nor the philosopher any brain to enable him to know this foundation is the highest known truth of all man's intellectual possessions. ”

“ Is it not ignorance of the workings of this Divine law that has given birth to the foundationless nightmare that now prevails to such an alarming extent all over civilization, that a deadly drug will prove its efficacy in warding off disease in a better way than has been prescribed by the intelligent God, who has formulated and combined life, mind and matter in such a manner that it becomes the connecting link between a world of mind, and that element known as matter? ”

“ Also the cancer, the wen, glandular thickening of neck, face, scalp, fascia and all substances found above the diaphragm. In this stale life we have a compass that will lead us as explorers from the North star, to the South pole, the rising sun of reason, and the evening dews of eternity. ”

“ We should use much caution in our assertions that nature had made its work so complete in animal forms and furnished them with such wisely prepared principles that they could produce and administer remedies to suit, and not leave the body to find them. Should we so conclude and find by experiment that man is so arranged, and wisely furnished by deity as to ferret out disease, purify and keep the temple of life in ease and health ”

“ If we know anything of the laws of electricity, we must know velocity modulates its temperature. Thus heat and cold are the effect.
If we understand anatomy as we should, we know man is the greatest engine ever produced, complete in form, an electro-magnet, a motor, and would be incomplete if it could not burn its own gases.
When man, is said to have fever, he is only on "fire," to burn out the deadly gases, which a perverted, dirty, abnormal, laboratory, has allowed to accumulate by friction of the journals of his body, or in the supply of vital fluids. ”