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Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917) is considered the father of osteopathy and osteopathic medicine (alternative medicine). He was a physician, surgeon, author, inventor and Kansas territorial and state legislator. After studying medicine and serving an apprenticeship under his father, he entered the Civil War as a Hospital Steward. Still was active in the abolition movement and a friend and ally of the infamous anti-slavery leaders John Brown and James H. Lane. After the Civil War and following the death of three of his children from spinal meningitis in 1864, Still concluded that the orthodox medical practices of his day were frequently ineffective and sometimes harmful. He devoted the next thirty years of his life to studying the human body and finding alternative ways to treat disease. He was one of the first physicians of his day to promote the idea of preventive medicine and the philosophy that physicians should focus on treating the disease rather than just the symptoms. He died in 1917 at the age of 89.
