Osteopathy Notes on the Technique and Practice

Osteopathy Notes on the Technique and Practice was edited by John Wernham in 1975.   Subjects covered include The Physiological Movements of the Spine; Osteopathic Diagnosis; Osteopathic Treatment of the Knee Joint; The Sacro-Iliac Articulation; Analysis of Side-Lying Technique; Disease of the Veins, Haemorrhoids; The Abdominal Cavity; Osteopathic Neck Technique; The Fevers; and Osteopathic Psychotherapeutics.  In his Introduction John Wernham writes that “The Notes have been selected from the best authoritative works published on osteopathy, and include lecture material and illustrated techniques to cover a wide field in osteopathic practice.”

John Wernham further writes in Osteopathy Notes on the Technique and Practice that “Physical medicine, as it is applied in the manner and style peculiar to osteopathic technique is not to be modelled on the latest medical theory, or discarded in favour of a new discovery in medical teaching.  Natural Law is unaware of changes in terminology, and the conditions that Nature demands for the maintenance of good health are the same yesterday, today and forever, regardless of the most advanced thinking in medical circles.

This is not to suggest that osteopathic technique and practice is content to remain at a standstill as medical techniques advance.  Such a notion is absurd.  But advance in one field of treatment can mean regression in another, particularly if Authority is weighted in favour of the one and at the expense of the other.  We have much to learn from other skills and other methods of treatment but it might be well to remember the words of the Chairman’s address delivered at the Inaugural Meeting of the Osteopathic Institute of Applied Technique, ‘….it is necessary always to preserve what many of us feel to be genuine osteopathy and, moreover, to develop it.  We have no quarrel with others, but we do feel that there is always an outside pressure on osteopathy which, if we react to it rightly, is perhaps a good thing; we can learn things from others.  But there is also an original osteopathic idea which is different from the medical idea and different specifically from the orthopaedic idea.  So much literature is produced in medical and orthopaedic circles that it is rather difficult for all of us, and particularly perhaps our students, to correlate it to genuine osteopathy and preserve genuine osteopathy.’ ”

John Wernham concludes his Introduction commenting that “The section on the fevers is printed exactly as it was delivered in the lecture room.  The purpose here is simply to capture something of the atmosphere of the living occasion and it is inevitable that the rules of syntax become lost or confused.  If the experiment has not succeeded from this point of view, perhaps the brevity of the note-form and the extended content will repay the busy student sufficiently well”.

To read more of “Osteopathy Notes on the Technique and Practice” you can purchase a copy from the JWCCO Bookshop for £12.00 here: http://www.johnwernhamclassicalosteopathy.com/osteopathy-notes-on-the-technique-and-practice/