Lectures of Dr. J.M. Littlejohn Volume I
The Littlejohn Lectures Volume I
John Wernham wrote in his introduction to The Littlejohn Lectures Volume I “The transcription from the lecture room to the printed page is difficult. Any attempt to reproduce the intimacy of the spoken word to the reader from the silent book can only result in a conglomerate of repetition and the most unfortunate juxtaposition of uncontrolled sentences and ‘asides’ that, to say the least, make for difficult reading. The only solution to this dilemma is one of compromise between a mere verbatim record and a total reconstruction with some omissions and with some alteration in presentation where the meaning is obscure. However, in spite of this daunting prospect every effort has been made to preserve the great truths that are enshrined in the old manuscripts and to restore, to some extent at least, the atmosphere of the earlier years of academic osteopathy, without creating an excess of fatigue for the modern student.
The Littlejohn Lectures Volume I edited by John Wernham, begins with the subject Osteopathy in General. John Wernham writes “The first question is “What is Osteopathy? Osteopathy is a system of therapeutics based on the theory that many diseases are due to pressure on the vessels, or nerves, by some displaced vertebrae, or some other part of the skeleton, or to a condition of imbalance in the muscles moving around the joint. The treatment is directed to the mechanical correction, by means of manipulation of the osseous displacement, or muscular imbalance, with a consequent repression of abnormal reflexes, and a restoration to normal of the circulation and the nerve impulses.”
John Wernham further writes “The method of treatment is based on the principle of adjustment. This is the key to our theory because all adjusted structures contribute their quota to general vital force underlying the correlated activities of the body, the constitutional vitality being the sum total of these correlated activities, and it is when this power fails that we are called in to help restore the vital force to its normal position. That is to say, the tendency to the normal is the underlying physiological force of the body. If, and when, lack of adjustment exists within the organism, or its environment, it is our place to recover the lost vital control and assist nature in the return to the normal.”
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