What is Manual Medicine/Therapy, Chiropractic & Osteopathic?
Manual Medicine/Therapy is a treatment that is manually performed by hand. The Manual Therapy (chiropractic, osteopathic, manual medicine) as a profession is only a century old, but manipulation has been used to treat human ailments since antiquity. Though no single origin is noted, manual procedures are evident in Thai artwork dating back 4,000 years. Ancient Egyptian, Chinese and Tibetan records describe the use of manual procedures to treat disease. Manipulation was also a part of the North and South American Indian cultures. Certainly, Hippocrates was known to use manual medical procedures in treating spinal deformity, and the noted physicians Galen, Celisies, and Orbasius alluded to manipulation in their writings. The nineteenth century witnessed a rise in popularity of American and English “bonesetters”. It was not until the days of D. D. Palmer and Andrew Taylor Still, the founders of chiropractic and osteopathy, that these procedures were codified into a system. Chiropractic an
