• My First Case of Flux
• Old Methods
• More Cases
• Believed to be Possessed of the Devil
• Prayers from Fools
• A Dislocated Neck
• Leaving Macon
• At Kirksville
• Mother Ivie
• Dr. F. A. Grove
• Judge Linder
• Chinn's Cheering Way
• Robert Harris
• A Helpless Cripple
• Typhoid Fever
• Feeble in Health and Purse
• Punching for Inebriacy
• An Ointment for Drunkenness

    My only thought was to help the woman and her children home, and little dreamed that I was to make a discovery that would bless future generations.  While walking along I thought it strange that the back was so hot and the belly so cold; then the neck and back of his bead were very warm, and the face, nose, and forehead cold.  I began to reason, for I knew very little about flux, more than it killed young and old, and was worse in Kentucky in warm weather than in some other States.  In all my life I had never asked myself what flux was, and no medical author that I had read had told me whether it was a being, such as symptomatology would divide up by symptoms, and put together and call the creature he had made out of guesses, flux.

    I did not know how to reason on diseases, because all the authorities I had read or met in council could not get their eyes off the effects rather than cause.  They met pain by anti-pain medicines, and bleeding of bowels by astringents that closed the issues from which the blood came, following such remedies to death's door, and then lined up for another battle and defeat with the same old failing remedies, and open fire all along the line on symptoms only.  I wondered why doctors were so badly frightened when flux visited their own families if their remedies were to be trusted.

    I knew that a person had a spinal cord, but really I knew little, if anything, of its use.  I had seen in reading anatomy that at the upper portion of the body the front side of the spinal cord supplied the motor nerves, and the back side of the cord the sensory nerves, but that gave no very great clue to what to do for flux.  As I began at the bases of the brain, and thought by pressures and rubbings I could push some of the hot to the cold places, and in so doing I found rigid and loose places on the muscles and ligaments of the whole spine, while the lumbar was in a very congested condition.  I worked for a few minutes on that philosophy, and told the mother to report next day, and if I could do anything more for her boy I would cheerfully do so.  She came early next morning with the news that her child was well.  Flux was in a large percent of the families of Macon.  The reader will remember that my home at that time was still in Baldwin, Kans., and I was only visiting in Macon.

    The lady whose child I had cured brought many others and their sick children to me for treatment.  As nearly as I can remember, I had seventeen severe cases of flux in a few days, and cured all without drugs.

    Other cases of summer and fall diseases appeared in the city, and I was called to treat many, which I did with success.  I soon found myself in possession of a large practice.  I was not so much surprised to learn that all kinds of fevers, summer and fall diseases could be cured without drugs as to hear that a Methodist preacher bad assembled my brother's wife and children for the purpose of prayers.  He turned fool, or was born that way, as many hurried births have in all ages produced idiots, and the old theological blank poured out his idiotic soul to the Lord; telling him my father was a good man and a saint in heaven, while he was of the opinion that I was a hopeless sinner, and had better have the wind taken away before I got any worse.  He stirred up such a hurrah and hatred in Macon, and it ran in such a stage, that those whom he could influence believed I was crazy.  Children gave me all the road, because I said I did not believe God was a whisky and opium-drug doctor; that I believed when He made man that He had put as many legs, doses, tongues, and qualities as he needed for any purpose in life for remedies and comfort.  For such arguments I was called an infidel, crank, crazy, and God was advised by such theological hooting owls to kill me and save the lambs.

    During this early crusade against me I was called to see a young lady said to be hopelessly ill with nervous prostration from fall heats.  All hope had been abandoned, and she had been given up to die.  At the end of a number of medical councils her father came to me and said:

    "My daughter is very sick, and the doctors say cannot live." He then asked me to step in and look at her.  He was a pleasant and appeared to be a very sensible man, so I just went to please him.  I found the young lady in bed, and from the twisted way her bead lay on the pillow I suspected a partial dislocation of her neck.  On examination I found the atlas or first joint of her neck one-half inch too far back, so it had shut off the vertebral artery from supplying the brain.  I carefully adjusted her neck, and in four hours she was out of bed sticking up for company.  Then other prayers were soon sent up to tell the Lord that I was possessed of the devil.  Her pa said the devil must have fifty dollars, so he gave it to me to send to my wife and babies in Kansas, who were in need of grub, as Kansas was then eaten up by grasshoppers.

    I don't think the Lord listened to such howling old fools, who would kill the cow with the carnal sword if she gave a bushel of milk with a drop of progress in it.

    My father was a preacher, but no fool for popularity among the ignorant.

    I was like good old Paul, who could not be in person always with sensible people, but was with them in spirit.

    Long since Osteopathy has had a big welcome in Macon city.  They weep and mourn because they did not know a truth from a lie, and help me build an infirmary there and make Macon the Athens of learning, instead of the rival town in an adjoining county.

    I bade them adieu in 1875, went to Kirksville, found some three or four thinking people who welcomed me and my baby, Osteopathy.  One dear old mother by the name of Ivie gave me rooms and board without charge for a month.  I had no money, but she was an old Baptist who said "Feed My lambs" was her religion.  Long since she has been at rest, but her kind old face will never fade from my memory.  A dear man named F. A. Grove, M.D., proved another friend.  He was a man of principle, and finely educated.  He came to me, he said, to welcome me to the town of Kirksville, then with about fifteen hundred inhabitants.  He had been around the world and found that some spots grew little trees of progress.  He and I were friends to his grave.  He helped me much to unfold the truths of this science.  Had he lived today, he would be my helper in the flesh, but while he lived he aided me to oil the wheels of progress.

    When I began to prove my work by actual results in Mother Ivie's hotel, a good-hearted man of sense named Charley Chinn rented to me a full suit of rooms over his store, though he knew I had no money.  Judge Linder, who knew me from a boy, came to me and said: "I will stay with you and help you for six months, for I see truth all over your philosophy." He stayed through the summer, and did well.  He had mines of silver in Arizona, and left for them.  I never saw him again, but I remember his strong arm and good advice, and will love him with my last breath.

    Charlie Chinn acted the man, and while I was with him, although he was a "Campbellite, " I felt as if I was at a good old Methodist love-feast.

    He always had something good to say that would cheer me up in my gloomiest hours.  He would pat me on the back and say, "Shout on, brother, one day you will outride the storm."  He never said, "Your rent is due, I must have my pay or possession of my rooms."  He proved himself the kind of a man to tie to.  I tied to him, and he got all the money I owed him, but the debt of gratitude I can never pay, unless I take the benefit of the bankrupt law, and I am opposed to that, for it never pays debts.  So I will ever let the debt hang over me, paying a little at a time, and leaving the remainder for my children to settle when I am gone.

    Early in my career at Kirksville I met Robert Harris, one of the best men I have seen since our banner felt the breezes.  He was a mechanic, machinist, and an ex-government gunsmith.  I spent hours, days, months, and years with him, in fact all the time I could spare.  When I wanted to talk of man as a machine containing all the varied parts and principles of life in man, and the wisdom of God in His work as found, and bow beautifully all worked together, be reasoned that man was the machine of all machines, and all others were only imitations of the parts and principles found in him.  The ability of God was to do work to a finish.  I asked my friend Mr. Harris why man was so slow to see and adopt a truth when brought to him, and I shall never forget his answer.  It was not a wordy harangue of Greek, Hebrew, French, and Latin adjectives, but plain and sensible.

    "Man naturally fears that which be does not understand.  He does not understand life nor death, therefore be dreads to think or talk on such subjects." He ended with, "Only few men allow themselves to think outside of popular ruts." That was the phrase of all phrases which gave me comfort and support when men rejected the truth and did not accept it.  Some men are by truth like a Texas steer is by corn; he dreads to go near it because he does not understand it.  They say: "Don't expect too much of a man, for many cannot think till they evolute some."

    After a while I found a few beginning to think, and from 1875 the change has been beyond all dreams or realities.  Today Kirksville has a population of eight thousand, among whom none are so blind but that they can see that Osteopathy has come to dwell and bless with all other great truths throughout all ages.

    Among the many interesting cases of my early experience was a little boy who bad no use of his legs or hips.  He was about four years old.  His mother (Mrs. Truit) carried him to me for six months in her arms to be treated for his helpless limbs.  On examination I found q spine imperfect in form, as I thought from my knowledge of the spine at that time.  I proceeded to articulate vertebra as best I could, during each two weeks for six months.  The mother showed that grit which no one but a mother can.  All summer she carried him to me, a distance of four miles through the hot timber.  His father was sceptical on new ways, and never helped his wife try to restore the boy, because some old gimlet-eyed blatherskite bad told him that Still was a crazy crank, and could do the boy no good.  At the end of six months the family moved West, and I heard no more
from the boy for ten years.  Then came the news of the father's death, also that the poor little fellow bad grown to a man of one hundred and sixty pounds.  He was running a farm, and supporting his angel-hearted mother as a reward for her life-and-death struggle through hot and cold to save him from a hopeless cripple.

    The story was so marvelous that I could hardly have believed it had I not seen marked signs of improvement in his spine before he left.

    In course of time I had work enough to feed my wife and babies and pay house-rent.  All went fairly well until the fall of 1876.  I had a severe spell of typhoid fever from September until June of lS7i.  I was very feeble and not able to work half the time.  By this time I was growing very weak financially.  Times set in very hard, and it was nip and tuck for my boys and I to keep even with home demands.  In 1880 I went to Wadesburgh, Henry County, Mo.  I began there to prove my work.  I treated at Clinton, Holden, Harrisonville, and other places until about l886.  In that year I made visits to Hannibal, Palmyra, Rich Hill, Kansas City, and other places.  Finally work became so plentiful I decided I must remain at some one place and let the patients come to me.  So in 1887 I gave up traveling and remained in Kirksville, Adair County, Mo., to teach and treat and build up an institution of which I shall speak later on.

    I will conclude this chapter with an amusing scientific incident which occurred in Macon County.

    While in Macon city, during one of the public affairs of the seventies, when a large and enthusiastic convention was about to assemble to tell the existing faults of a Republican administration and to turn the rascals out and turn more rascals in, one good, honest-looking old black-smith smilingly approached me and said:

    "Let us go in the saloon and have something to take!" He was in his shirt-sleeves, with an abdomen as large as a full moon hung to him, from which I thought he had had too much "to take."  In a joking way I exposed about a half-acre of his abdomen on the public street before hundreds of people, and said:

    "My dear friend, I have power on earth and in heaven.  I am acquainted with the living men and angels, male and female, and your mother says for me to snatch you away from these whisky hells!" I put my hand upon his abdomen, punched, snatched, and scratched, and told the old gentleman that, "From this day on whisky will make you sick.  It will make you vomit whenever you smell of it.  If you think I lie, go stick your nose in that saloon, and come back to me."  In a few minutes he returned, and said that he got the smell of the beer and whisky, and he began to turn sick at the stomach.  He didn't want to stay any longer for fear he would throw up.  I watched his conduct for a period of seven years, at which time he died, having never tasted whisky from the time I told him I knew all about devils, life, and death, and he always thanked me for rescuing him from drunkenness.  He made an effort to pass the saloons three times a day, which he had entered and spent sixty cents daily for over twenty years, according to his own statement.  His wife being a Christian woman, on learning that I was the man who saved her husband from drunkenness, whenever she met me greeted me with, "God bless Brother still!"

[graphic 131: "I PUT MY HAND UPON HIS ABDOMEN."]

    I had no object in view when I pow-wowed the old gentleman, punched and twisted his abdomen, and told him of the awful ending of the sot, except a little street fun.  What I considered nonsensical and foolish had the effect to make a sober man of him, and saved sixty cents each day out of his daily labor for his good wife to apply in the necessaries and comforts of life.  I never told the old man nor his wife that all that pow-wow was simply a little nonsense, because I saw they both believed I was a heavenly messenger, and through me the angels had saved her husband.  Some other ladies brought a doctor to me.  One held to each arm, trying to beguile him into entering my brother's house.  He said:

    "Not much, Sally Jane; you are not going to get Still to hoodoo me, for I like my whisky too well; you can't come it!"

    The doctor was so thoroughly convinced from the case that I had talked out of his whisky, that he was afraid to take the remedy, and ran off.  Had the ladies warned me of their intention, I would have been prepared to run the rabbit's foot on the doctor.  From all the varied expressions of his face and eyes he fully believed if I got hold of him the love of whisky would forever depart.  Suppose I had relieved this doctor of this thirst for whisky, fixed a few more, and had got something like a popular craze among the doctors to be treated for the whisky habit, how many hundred thousands would I have to punch and spank and scratch each year?  I only judge that they would amount to hundreds of thousands from the fact that those whom I had met, not over ten per cent could say they had neither bottle nor jug round their office with decoctions for their stomachs' sake.

    One case of drunkenness I treated medically.  I had some good old-fashioned volatile liniment in which hartshorn and sweet oil were the chief ingredients.  I was walking along with a bottle of this liniment in my hand, to treat a patient for a bruise or sprain, and met an old acquaintance addicted to getting tipsy, as he called it.  He was sober enough himself, but his legs were on a big bender.  He told me be had a very bad headache.  I assured him my liniment would cure everything, headache and all.  He took off his hat in the street, and told me to pour on some, and "lots of the truck." I uncorked my bottle and began to pour it on top of his head.  I spilled about a tablespoonful or more; it ran down his hair, over his forehead, and into his eyes.  He got out his handkerchief and I got mine, both wiping his face and eyes.  He said his head was on fire, and his eyes burning out.  I procured water and soap and washed off the liniment.  By the time his face was washed and dried he was very sober, and has never been drunk since.  I would recommend to all ladies whose husbands get drunk and talk too loud, to grease the tops of their heads with volatile liniment, and not wash it off too quick.  If they ever get drunk again, which they are not likely to do, just grease them once more for their stomachs' sake.  This liniment will cost fifty cents a half-pint.  Any druggist will put it up for you, and you pour some in your husband's eyes, every time he gets drunk, and be will quit or ask for a divorce.