the quality and style of my writing since it has
probably improved since then.
“It was pretty obvious to those of us practicing
nutritional psychiatry, later orthomolecular psychi-
atry, that it was the content of our material which
was found to be not acceptable. This was proven by
the attempt of the American Psychiatric Associa-
tion to censor our work even several years after
papers had been published. Dr. Osmond and I
appeared before the Committee of Ethics of the
APA to answer why we were publicizing a treat-
ment not acceptable to standard psychiatry called
xenobiotic psychiatry by Dr. Bernard Rimland. One
of the assistant editors of the American Psychiatric
Association Journalannounced that he would never
allow any article from our group to appear in his
journal. He had been the chairman of the task force
which had out of hand condemned any of this
work. This new journal was to become the forum
available to practitioners of the new psychiatry
which official psychiatry found so unacceptable.
The peer reviewed journals did their job very effec-
tively, i.e., they prevented any of these new ideas
from appearing in their journals. Even today the
Medical Index will not abstract our journals using
the excuse that they do not have enough money.
Peer reviewed journals do not protect the public
from research reports of inferior quality, nor do
they protect the public from dangerous ideas they
protect the establishment from ideas that run
counter to their own.
“After two years we shortened the title to
‘Schizophrenia’ for three years. In 1972 the title
was changed to the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychi-
atryto reflect the widening use of nutrition in the
treatment of many physical and psychiatric disor-
ders. Dr. Linus Pauling in 1968 had proposed the
term orthomolecular psychiatry which we recog-
nised as the correct word to define the total inter-
est in nutrition, clinical ecology, and the use of
supplements. There were 14 volumes.
“In 1986 the name was changed to the Journal of
Orthomolecular Medicine, to reflect the growing
interest by physicians in this approach, and the fact
that psychiatrists remained singularly disinterested
in anything having to do with nutrition and psy-
chiatric disease.”
osteopathy A medical discipline founded on the
premise that the normal body’s structural and func-
tional states are equally important, and with proper
nourishment and environment the body can com-
bat disease and dysfunction and heal itself. An
osteopathic physician (O.D. or D.O.) seeks to rid the
system of either internal or external abnormalities
through procedures that include manipulation,
medicine, and surgery. Established by Dr. Andrew
Taylor Still (1828–1917), osteopathy is considered
both conventional and alternative medicine.
According to Dr. I. M. Korr, osteopathy is “a
complete system of health care, based on broad
principles that offer a way of thinking and acting in
relation to questions of health and disease.” Osteo-
pathic diagnosis and treatment are geared to pro-
mote healthy functioning by correcting mechanical
imbalances within and between the structures—
muscles, bones, ligaments, organs, and fascia (thin
layers of tissue under the skin)—of the body. The
goals of the osteopath are to restore, maintain, and
improve the functions of the nervous and muscu-
loskeletal systems.
The name osteopathy, derived from the Greek
osteon(bone) and pathos(to suffer), that is, “disease
or suffering of the bone,” although the condition is
not confined to bone disease, as its name may
imply, but rather refers to the entire musculoskele-
tal system. As did Dr. Still, who viewed the muscu-
loskeletal system as the vital mechanism of the
body, osteopaths observe patients to determine the
causes of disease in a holistic way. The physical
integrity of the whole body is seen as one of the
most important factors in health and disease.
Osteopathy and conventional medicine both
embrace the scientific knowledge of anatomy and
physiology and clinical methods of investigation.
However, conventional medicine focuses on illness,
and treatment usually involves prescribing drugs or
surgery to correct illness. The osteopathic approach
attempts to trace anomalies or changes in function
that may have occurred over a period that could
have altered the relationship between structure
and function. Excerpted from the book Discovering
Osteopathy (Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses Press, 1997)
one Internet article (“Discovering Osteopathy,” by
osteopaths Peter Sheddon and Paolo Cosechi,120 osteopathy