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
The lonely philosopher
The lonely philosopher loves company. Why not? Before he can reason and prove his theory by facts demonstrated he must be well filled with a loving soul. He must love nature and all of its products, thus he naturally loves his fellow-man. His soul hungers for the most ardent rivers of love that flow in the breast of man. He loves his mother dearly, if alive, if not her memory in the cold grave with eye-blinding oceans of briny sobs of a child’s sweetest love. If he should possess the powers of an accepted philosopher, he knows he owes it all to the silent ashes of his mother, and when his mind drifts from her sacred tomb to other forms of nature he goes with silent engine of love fully charged into new fields as an explorer for new truths. He could not succeed, did he not love mother nature with all his mind and strength with the very sweetest emotions of every throb of his heart. Many persons feel that he is not a companion to be sought, that he is devoid of love and only a cold machine of cause and effect. He learns that he must be a man of one subject at a time only. He often weeps bitter tears because he is left alone to travel from first mile posts to all others, alone without a kind hand to even touch his burning forehead or drop a word of approval of his labors of day and night for months and years. He too very often feels that all his friends have long since been the silent occupants of the mossy graves of deserted lands while he has been plowing deep in the stumpy lands of the forests to plant a few sprouts from the tree of life and knowledge, he must be patient even though he grows gray.
When he measures space and counts and measures the great world and truthfully reports what he has seen and knows of the wheeling and counter-wheeling in space, all in obedience to the laws of love, even mighty worlds many million times larger than our earth, let him rejoice and be exceedingly glad that his lonely hours have turned loose rivers of joy to millions of men of his day and generations to follow. Be merciful on the poor lonely philosopher, he loves you but has not the time to give in words what his heart feels for you. He has given you all from the dug-out to the steam monsters of the sea, he has given you the law of loving government, he has taken the lightning’s furious power, tamed it, made it grind your bread, cook the same, and made by his cool head a mouth that can be heard many miles away. He has lighted your cities, turned his search-light on the ocean wave, that you can see friend and foe. He has made all you have, that is joyful mentally and physically. Honor his day, thank him for his mental worry—all his sleepless nights given for your comfort. He, too, could be a giddy sport and drift with the animals of his race and day. With his powerful mind given with all his native powers to animal pleasures, he could excel even as a man of that class, but he could not be untrue to his convictions, and thus he left off the pleasures of his day for that, which would stand the tests of all days and leave to us that everlasting legacy—wisdom.
Often he soliloquizes when alone “Am I singled out and coldly deserted by all.” Yea, even the beasts of the field seem to shun my presence, as though I were the chief of cold-blooded tyrants. “I am not, I love them, because God gave them a place to fill, both in time and space. I am in deepest love with their form and being, without them, nature’s decorations would be a mourning blank.” This thought came as a consoling friend in my hour of wailing and it gave me words of cheer. “That he who can reason must learn to be happy in seclusion just as much so as in the mirthful throngs,” conscious that he feeds the hungry by his genius, clothes the naked by his skill and gives rest to the weary.
Why not count the silent philosopher as among the first when his mind soars aloft and dwells among the mysteries of the heavens.
A.T. Still
Journal of Osteopathy, August 1901
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