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Skeptics view of Osteopathy

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  • 13-03-2008 5:58pm
    #1
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 8,993 ✭✭✭


    Hi,
    What is the Skeptics view of Osteopathy?
    Thanks
    Tim


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    #2
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,417 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Grim.


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    #3
    davros
    Closed Accounts Posts: 857 ✭✭✭davros


    There is osteopathy and then there are osteopaths. I'm not qualified to have much of an opinion on the subject but here goes anyway...

    I get the impression that while osteopathy (and also chiropractic) contains some wacky theoretical underpinnings, people who attend osteopaths (and chiropractors) actually receive something like physiotherapy. So one might actually get genuine treatment for muscle/joint/back problems from someone with real knowledge of human anatomy.

    I'm willing to be contradicted on this though.


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    #4
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 8,993 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    robindch wrote: »
    Grim.

    Elaborate.


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    #5
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,417 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Well, as davros points out, chiropracty and osteopathy are "supported" by some very, very strange ideas about the world.

    Osteopathy, as far as I understand it, is little different from massage and as long as you're not sick, I'd imagine that it's quite relaxing. Osteopathy started up, AFAIR, in the 1870's in the USA and is something I know little about.

    Chriopracty, as far as I understand it, derives in part from osteopathy and involves the notion that illness is not caused by bacteria, viruses and the like, but by "subluxations" of the spine which need appropriate "manipulation". Chriopracty began in the 1890's in the USA, and rather like homeopathy, its practitioners revere the movement's rather bizarre founder. Unlike homeopathy, but similar to other charismatic movements, chiropracty suffered a number of schisms, producing various schools of thought regarding exactly what a "subluxation" is, and what "manipulations" are appropriate. No agreement will be reached any time soon, because there is little or no research of any quality carried out into chiropracty and how effective or otherwise it is.

    I can't recall all the details of the story, but AFAIR, the guy who founded chiropracty was highly-religious bunny. At some point during his career, he massaged a deaf person's spine and the massagee (?) said that his hearing had suddenly returned. The founder concluded that all illness is caused by the spine and chiropracty has not looked back since.


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