Andrew Taylor Still MD. D.O is considered the father of Osteopathy and Osteopathic medicine.

He was born in Lee County, Virginia in 1828, the son of a Methodist minister and physician. After the Civil war and following the death of three of his children from spinal meningitis in 1864, Still concluded that orthodox medical practices of his day were frequently ineffective and sometimes harmful. He devoted the next 30 years of his life to studying the human body and finding alternative ways to treat disease.

Today Osteopathy is an established system of diagnosis and treatment of problems in the musculo-skeletal system i.e. our bones, joints, muscles, ligaments and connective tissues and the way this inter relates with the body as a whole.

It combines the medical knowledge of anatomy, physiology and clinical methods together with osteopathic principles and technique to restore a patient to optimum health. 

An osteopath uses their palpatory skills ( i.e. feeling with their hands) to find areas of the body which are not functioning properly, and then use soft tissue massage, articulatory and mobilsation techniques (the audible “click” associated with osteopathy) to adjust areas of the body, thus improving function. As the spine is closely related to the nervous system, and the nervous system supplies our muscles and organs, then improvement of spinal function can result in improvement of organ function and hence an overall improvement of health.

The title ‘osteopath’ is protected by law since the passing of the osteopaths Act in 1993 and all osteopaths are registered with the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC). As part of this registration we all have to undergo 90 hours of continual professional development (CPD) over a three year cycle. All of our osteopaths are registered.