Principles
The osteopathic medical philosophy is defined as the concept of health care that embraces the concept of the unity of the living organism’s structure (anatomy) and function (physiology). The four major principles of osteopathic medicine are:
- The body is an integrated unit of mind, body, and spirit.
- The body possesses self-regulatory mechanisms, having the inherent capacity to defend, repair, and remodel itself.
- Structure and function are reciprocally interrelated.
- Rational therapy is based on consideration of the first three principles.
These principles are not held by Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine to be empirical laws; they serve, rather, as the underpinnings of the osteopathic philosophy on health and disease.
Read more about this topic: Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine
Famous quotes containing the word principles:
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)