I started a collection of texts from old osteopathic journals that could be of interest to osteopaths and people curious about osteopathy.
You can fin the full list here
Some were translated into French here
Obstetrics
How and what to do in all cases of parturition is the query of the young doctor when he has finished his school days. I think a little advice may be acceptable to him. Two objects line up and demand his cool-headed attention. The life of a woman and child are placed in his charge for his safe delivery. How and where he must deliver the two safely are the questions of weight and importance to the man with theory only, and no experience. He begins now to feel that the lack of experimental knowledge is the veil that clouds his sky. I will offer a few words of what I know to be good advice to the beginner in the responsible duties of the doctor at this time. First, keep cool until you think a few moments; there is a large body that has to come out of a freight depot; stop and take another cool breath, ask yourself if there is a door to the depot that is as large as the package that is to be taken out, if so, then when is that package to be rolled out? When he finds the fruit must stay on the tree until ripe and ready to fall off, then is the time to roll the package out; then he has settled the point to be patient till the time for birth has fully come. How may he know when that time has come in the case before him? He must shut his eyes and memory to all bugaboos, bones and deformities that he has seen in books on midwifery that he has grown to almost believe he has to meet every time he is called to attend a case of obstetrics. He should remember that he may meet one bad case of pelvic deformity in one thousand times that he is called to attend. He should study well the use of the forceps and other instruments that he may have to use in delivery in badly deformed women. But he must remember that his hand is far better in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred than any instrument that man has or ever can make. Osteopathy says you must not come bulging into such places with an arm full of carpenter tools, the sight of which is enough to scare a woman into a spell of paralysis of the womb, and stop all action or power of the whole system to deliver the child by natural expulsion. I think the most foolish thing a doctor can do, is to act so as to cause a woman to feel that she has nothing to do in the delivery of her child, and her only hope to be delivered is to let the doctor pull her child away by brute force. You must teach her that the God of nature had formed her for that purpose, be patient and trust to nature and ninety-nine women in a hundred will have no trouble in the safe delivery of her child. Has not nature formed and given power to her muscles to deliver her? What do we find but wisdom in her formation? We find strong sphincter muscles to hold the womb closed from conception to the hour of birth, then they cease to act as constrictors till the expelling muscles have forced the contents of the womb out to the world. Don’t be too anxious to assist nature artificially with your constipation pills, your vaginal douches, and what she should eat when pregnant; if she wants a few apples let her do like Eve of old just shake a tree and eat. Let her alone, she sometimes has more brain than the doctor that has been called in.
Often mothers have what is mistaken by the young doctor for labor pains, such pains often occur two to four weeks before natural labor comes. Remember that to bring on or cause labor prematurely is abortion, and you may by such hasty imprudence cause the death of a healthy woman and child. You cannot use too much caution with your advice and work at such times. This is written for the Osteopathic beginner in obstetrics. I will close by saying that all deformed cases should be advised to go to some lying in hospital where assistance is plenty, and where they have the best of surgical skill and experience.
A.T. Still
Journal of Osteopathy, July 1900
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