Osteopathy was founded in America by a physician, Dr Andrew Taylor Still. He served as an army doctor in the American Civil War and saw the suffering caused by infected wounds, post-operative infections and the ineffectiveness of medications used then and in the epidemics that followed the war. He also suffered personal tragedy when he lost 3 of his children and his wife in a meningitis epidemic.

 

​Those experiences prompted him to think about what enabled the body to be healthy. He reasoned that the body must have its own self-maintaining and self-regulating mechanisms that work continually to keep it healthy.

 

​He observed that patients who were ill had irregularities in the alignment of their spines and he became certain that many illnesses arise when part of the body's structure is misaligned or not moving properly. He was able to alleviate or cure his patients’ illnesses by manipulating joints and soft tissue.