“Osteopathy is not [purely] manipulation. The Osteopathic Lesion is physiological and not anatomical. The key to this is found in Adjustment, not correction: this is impossible in the living body. Clinically, the action is directed conjointly to all the body tissues, employing the limbs as long levers directed to the spine with mild articulation only. It is not possible to adjust the abnormal to the normal, which means that local treatment remains local without general or permanent effect. This can only be gained by a process of integration which begins at a point furthermost from the point of lesion, thus tracing the injury backward from the final to the original disturbance.
The loss of integrity and loss of balance in the body is due to an imbalance between the central and sympathetic nervous systems and the proper inter-relation between the laws of statics and dynamics in the body. These two mainsprings represent the basis of Classical Osteopathy.”