REGISTRATION AND REGULATION OF OSTEOPATHY. (Hansard, 11 February 1931)

Mr. W. M. ADAMSON

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to regulate the practice of osteopathy and to prescribe the qualifications of osteopathic practitioners. I do not apologise to the House for asking leave to bring in this Bill, because, within recent memory, a considerable number of Bills of a similar character have been introduced. I need only remind the House that dentists, nurses and architects—the last in a Bill which is at present in Committee upstairs—have been asking for the privilege of dealing with their own professional problems by their own organisations. This Bill asks that a similar privilege should be conferred on the osteopathic profession, so that, having regard to the nature of their work, they may be brought into line with the medical profession which is the nearest approach to their profession. It is necessary that I should indicate to the House the nature of the request which is being made. It is a simple and plain issue governed by two definite points and the objects of the Bill, covering those two points, are, first, to establish a board or council with the necessary authority to regulate the practice of osteopathy in this country and, second, to compile a register of practitioners of a prescribed standard according to qualifications. The board which we propose is of a representative character, dealing with all the repre- 411 sentative bodies interested. It is proposed that that board should have the right, which has been given to other bodies of the kind, to determine what are to be the qualifications entitling a practitioner to be placed on the register, and also that it should have some practical control over the examinations in connection with those qualifications.

I know that there is doubt in certain quarters as to whether the practitioners in the osteopathic profession to-day are entitled to these privileges, and we are frequently reminded that there are charlatans and quacks who are trespassing upon the privileges of another profession, but it is not merely of one profession that that could be said to-day, or at any time in our history, and the probability is that in the building up of the traditions of any profession, there have always been those who have been termed interlopers. I can only refer to what has taken place in the United States of America. The privileges that we are asking for professional skilled osteopaths have already been established in 47 of the United States of America, and in law they are entitled to the same privileges as other professions that may be in competition with them.

Perhaps I may remind the House of the definition of osteopathy. Osteopathy is a system of health and healing founded upon the fact that the body itself can provide the necessary qualities for health and healing, provided that it is kept in that mechanical adjustment that is essential for hygiene and other necessary conditions. That theory is at times contested, and it is said that it cannot be put into practice. It reminds me somewhat of the words of the wonderful Persian poet, Omar Khayyâm, in the translation by Fitzgerald; Myself when young did eagerly frequent, Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same door wherein went. If the conviction of a theory is not established, at least we can be in the position of having an open mind and able to accept and grasp a new and health-giving service and give it operation, whereby it can establish itself in this country. Just as 412 it has developed in other countries, so I ask that the same privileges be granted to it for those who are asking for these rights in this country.

In conclusion, I would ask the House to grant this privilege, because all the claims of the medical profession were sometimes in conflict with the newer and more scientific methods, with the newer, health-giving services, due entirely to their capacity for forgetting that in a newer age, by means of better sewerage, better hygiene, and open air conditions, a higher health has been brought into being. Therefore, I ask the House to give favourable consideration to this Motion, and to grant permission for the Bill to be introduced.

§ Dr. FORGAN

It will not surprise certain Members in this House that a member of the medical profession should ask the House not to allow this Bill to be introduced. It may be said that in the past the medical profession has laid itself open to the accusation that we have sought to make ourselves a very close corporation, but I think that on calm reflection most of us will agree that the conservative attitude—using that word "conservative" in its best sense—of the medical profession towards new methods of treatment has probably been beneficial to the mass of the community. He would be a rash man to-day who said that every registered medical practitioner had at his command the skill or the knowledge that some skilled osteopaths have, and it is unfortunate that some men with a natural bent—shall we say, a wonderful pair of hands—should be prohibited from exercising that power to healing that they might do if they were recognised and their practice regularised.

I am opposing the introduction of this Bill, not because there is nothing good in osteopathy, but because my hon. Friend who asks leave to introduce the Bill is speaking, not on behalf of all osteopaths, but on behalf of a section of them who are content with a standard of education and training which, in the opinion of many of us, is not a sufficient guarantee that if this recognition were given, serious mistakes might not occur. If the conception held by the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), of my right hon. Friend the Leader of this party, applied to the entire community, there would be no need for bone-setters at all; but 413 Osteopathy concerns itself far more than merely with the maladjustment of spinal vertebrae, but we are not discussing what osteopathy may be able to do.

I suggest that the Bill does not seek to set down a sufficiently high standard for those who are to be recognised under it. There are in this country to-day members of the British Osteopathic Association who have had four, five, and six years' training in their subject. There are in almost every village in the country bone-setters who do some good, and who often do a great deal of harm, and we do not want to have men who have real skill and training classified in the same category as their less fortunate brothers. I hope this House, on a later occasion, will not only give leave to introduce but will also pass a Bill regularising the best type of osteopathy, but in the meantime I ask the House to refuse leave to introduce this particular Bill.