Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Today we live in world of every kind of recipe and cure imaginable with a raft of complementary therapies and medicinal traditions accepted as normal practice even within traditional medical settings but when Andrew Taylor Still began to develop Osteopathy, the information available was scarce and the acceptance of his methods needed to be won. Striking out of his own with only his education and experience to propel his treatments forward, his most important motivation was a distaste for the suffering he believed to be the result of typical medical treatments and strategies of the time.<br><br>Doctor Still was a pioneer of the practice of teaching women and minorities to administer treatment and an early advocate of prescribing pharmaceutical cures in a proportionate way, He has inspired a global healthcare practice with his body of work. <br><br>Still was a surgeon by specialism which in some ways makes his invention of a technique with an emphasis on non-invasive treatment even more surprising. He became convinced by and argued for physical manipulation over other treatments as a result of the absence of terrible side effects that he had observed for some common practices and prescriptions at the time. He spent his life promoting his system across the world and he founded the first American School of Osteopathy. <br><br>This work gives an excellent perspective on the practice and development of Osteopathic treatment, straight from the mouth of the founder of the entire tradition. Osteopaths, those with an interest in medical history will gain a great deal from The Philosophy and Mechanical Principles of Osteopathy.