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Medicine’s Rebel Child - Osteopathy through the ages

Published by Ed Paget

Medicine
Health & Fitness

The history of medicine is written by the victors, but the story of osteopathy is found in the margins. For decades, our profession has been dismissed, misunderstood, or "sanitized" by the medical establishment. But there is a wealth of brilliant, eye-opening research out there exploring Andrew Taylor Still’s radical, holistic vision—if only we had the time to read it. If you're anything like me, you stumble across a fascinating osteopathic journal article, only to get distracted or bogged down by dense, academic language. How much incredible insight is sitting on digital shelves, unread by the very people practicing today? This podcast bridges that gap. Using AI to parse through complex academic pieces, we deliver easy-to-digest summaries that honor the original authors and bring their work into the spotlight. Join us as we dive into lost philosophies, eccentric metaphors, and the frontier origins of a practice that has always insisted: there is more to health than the absence of disease. If you have a research article you'd like us to feature please send it to me here: ed@edpaget.com

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Recent episodes

Early Osteopathy, Native American Traditions, and Neuroscience

May 4, 2026

This podcast is based on the article by Zegarra-Parodi et al (2019) The Native American heritage of the body-mind-spirit paradigm in osteopathic principles and practices. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1746068919300793 We explore the deep, often overlooked connections between Native American traditional healing and the foundations of osteopathic medicine. We discuss how A.T. Still, the founder of osteopathy, was influenced by the body-mind-spirit paradigm used by Native American Medicine Men to develop a holistic approach to health while living among the Shawnee people. The conversation examines the Medicine Wheel as a conceptual framework for achieving balance across physical, mental, and spiritual factors. We also investigate the transition between monophasic and polyphasic brain functioning—moving beyond Western-centric labels to understand how spiritual experiences and different realities are now being interpreted through modern neuroscience and predictive processing models. Ultimately, we highlight how the osteopathic profession is uniquely positioned to bridge its traditional heritage with a scientific model of truly holistic care.

How Osteopathy Erased It's Soul

Mar 6, 2026

This podcast highlights an academic review published in the journal Healthcare, 2024, that compares the 1897 and 1908 editions of Andrew Taylor Still’s autobiography to track the early evolution of osteopathy in America. The authors argue that revisions made to the second edition reflects a deliberate attempt to standardize the profession and gain legal recognition within a rapidly formalizing biomedical healthcare system . To avoid charges of sectarianism, reviewers sanitized the text by removing references to spiritualism, Native American influences, and eccentric metaphors . These findings highlight an early shift from Still's holistic, person-centered origins toward a more restricted, science-oriented medical model. Ultimately, the study encourages modern practitioners to reconsider how non-physical components of health might be reintegrated into contemporary patient care. Journal Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38255019/

Medicine’s Rebel Child - Osteopathy through the ages

Medicine’s Rebel Child - Osteopathy through the ages

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Recent episodes