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.