Baltimore Evening Sun (29 March 1915): 6.

Meanwhile, the time is almsot upon us for the Kaiser to commit suicide again via London.

Those great but unrecognized pathologists, “Drs.” R. R. Keiningham and H. O. Warns, “physicians-in-charge” of the Baltimore Osteopathic Clinic, put me vigorously to the torture in today’s Forum, along with Prof. Dr. Emil Behring, Prof. Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Prof. Dr. Sir Almrogh Wright and a whole host of other medical backward-lookers and ignoramuses. The attack is marked by a dazzling emission of scientific and pseudo-scientific terms and symbols—e.g., Hg, KI, As, trypanasomiasis and plasmodium malariae, the use of which last, by the way, according to Muir and Ritchie’s “Manual of Bacteriology,” is “incorrect.” But despite all the fine frenzy of the learned “doctors” and all their marshaling of impressive “facts,” I continue hunkerously in my belief that osteopathy is a piece of hollow poppycock, and so remain in the abhorrent society of the wrong-thinkers who compose the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, that sink of quackery.

The “doctors” begin proceedings by denying that “osteopaths argue * * * that all diseases * * * are caused by misplaced structures,” and then proceed to say that in cancer they resort to scientific surgery, and in hookworm to antisepsis. Here, unluckily, they are at adds with the eminent “Dr.” Perey H. Woodhull, whose definition of osteopathy “Dr.” Keiningham lately borrowed (without credit) as “the first excellent one available.” “Dr.” Woodhull, after defining osteopathy as “a complete system of treatment,” proceeded to describe its technic in some detail, making a particular effort to differentiate it from mere massage. The only method he describes is “manipulation.” He speaks of “manipulative technic” specifically, identifying it with osteopathy and mentioning no other form of treatment, and he says clearly that it has “the specific purpose of adjusting misplaced structures.” And in the end he makes the unequivocable claim that ostepathy is “applicable to all curable diseases.”

But the point, after all, is not worth discussing. The osteppaths, stumped by the failure of their “manipulative technic,” may often, and perhaps they do, call in the aid of more scientific systems of healing. When they encounter (and, by any chance, recognize) a cancer. they may duly send for a.scientific surgeon, as “Drs.” Keiningham and Warns say; and when their diagnostic skill reveals a case of hookworm, they may send to a drug-store (O horrible!) for an antiseptic. But whatever these occasisional strayings from the straight and narrow path of hocus-pocus, the clear fact remains that it is “manipulative technic” which separates osteopathy from all other healing schemes, and that the theories underlying this “manipulative technic” are the theories upon which osteopathy is firmly grounded. Take away “manipulative technic,” and the doctrine that disease is “caused by misplaced structures,” and there would not be enough left of osteopathy to make it recognizable.

Well, is it true that any considerable number of diseases are caused by “misplaced structures” and that “manipulative technic” will cure them? It is not. In a few rare cases this cause may undoubtedly produce pathological conditions, and in such cases scientific medicine is quick to detect and remedy the displacements. But in the overwhelming majority of cases there is no more visible connection between such displacements and the etiology of the disease than there is between the patient’s chest expansion and the color of his eyes. The osteopathic theory to the contrary is wholly gratuitous, unjustifiable and unsound. It has no more support in scientific observation than the chiropractic theory that all diseases origianate in the backbone, or than the Christian Science theory that all diseases are caused by “error,” “materialism” or “malicious animal magnetism.” It is a generalization from inaccurate and insufficient observation. Scientifically, it is sheer quackery.

True enough, the remote first causes of a good many diseases are not accurately known. We know that disorders of circulation or of metabolism (e.g., the effects of exposure, of lack of sleep or of over-eating) will often prepare the body for the common infections known roughly as “colds,” and we have reason to believe that mechanical irritation often paves the way for cancer. Going further, we know that inoculation with the organisms of such diseases as malaria, cholera, syphilis and bubonic plague is sufficient to produce these diseases in perfectly healthy men, without any predisposing cause whatever. But as to the remote causes of certain other diseases–e.g., eczema, leprosy and gallstones–we are still very much in the dark. Living the same sort of life in the same place, some persons will develop these diseases and others will not. We know (or think we know) how they are kept going, once they start, but we are wholly ignorant of the factors which produce a predisposition to them.

But to say that this ignorance or uncertainty still exists—which is the gravamen of the charge that the osteopaths bring against scientific medicine–is certainly not to prove that the osteopathic solution of the problem is sound or reasonable. All that osteopathy offers that is new, in truth, is a bold and illogical guess–and that guess is quickly disposed of when it is put to the test. Malaria is not caused by a misplacement of structure, and it is not true that “when the anatomical is adjusted the physiological will potentiate.” Malaria is actually caused by protozoa deposited in the blood stream by certain mosquitoes, and no matter what the condition of a man’s joints, he will infallibly get the disease if enough of those protozoa are injected into him. In support of this doctrine there is an overwhelming mass of evidence, certified to by almost innumerable scientific witnesses. And the theory that quinine will cure malaria is supported by testimony just as conclusive.

The osteopaths can produce no such evidence in support of their balderdash. They have been issuing their loud claims for years, but they have yet to convert a single pathologist of the slightest skill or standing. Scientific medicine is enormously hospitable to new ideas; despite all the ignorant allegiations to the contrary, it is by no means committed to drugs. It even allows a considerable value to “manipulative technic” in certain pathological conditions. But in the central theory of osteopathy it can see nothing but extravagant bombast and nonsense. That theory is no more respectable than the rubber-stamp theories of all the other cure-alls—e.g., Fletcherism, Christian Science, biochemistry. If it had any reason in it, some one, at least, of the surgeons that the osteopaths call in for cancer would have been converted to it. But not one of them, in point of fact, has the slightest belief in it.

The betting odds in the downtown kaifs, as reported by my Pilseneers:

1 to 1 that the combined vote of MM. Hill and Heinzeman will be more than half of the vote of the Hon. D. Harry. 1,000 to 1 that Back River is wet on the second Sunday in May.

Incidentally, the same London press bureau which now supplies us with news of gigantic German defeats is kept busy in times of peace supplying the Germans with thrilling tales of American lynchings, wholesale murders and political corruption.