Osteopathic manipulative treatment and the Spanish flu: a historical literature review

摘要

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 wasapproached with a variety of management techniquesavailable at that time, including osteopathic care in addition to standard medical care.Objective: To analyze the osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) techniques used for the management of patients affected by the Spanish flu according to four themes:the principles and procedures used, frequency and lengthof OMT, reported side effects, and advice for patients.Methods: A structured review of the literature was performed by hand-searching texts at the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine International Center for Osteopathic Historyin Kirksville, Missouri, and online via PubMed (NationalLibrary of Medicine), ScienceDirect (Elsevier), and GoogleScholar (Google, Inc). The literature search was carried outbetween February and March 2020. Three keywords wereselected from the medical subject headings database of the National Library of Medicine: manipulation, osteopathic;influenza pandemic, 1918–1919; epidemics. Articles werethen reviewed for relevance by screening for articles published between 1900 and 1940 that contained at least 1 of thefollowing keywords in their title: Spanish influenza, flu,epidemic, grippe, pneumonia, or osteopathic management/treatment. All articles that provided information about OMTand advice met the inclusion criteria. Articles that did notreport descriptions of manipulative intervention wereexcluded.Results: Our search yielded 63 articles: 23 from the handsearch and 40 from the electronic search. No electronicsource was selected for the review because none met inclusion criteria. A total of 16 articles from the handsearched set met inclusion criteria and were analyzedaccording to the four main themes stated in the objective.The range of OMT approaches reported to be administered to patients with Spanish flu suggests that earlyosteopathic physicians treated patients with this diseaseusing OMT in addition to offering advice on healthylifestyle behaviors.Conclusion: Conclusions from this study are limited bythe historical and descriptive nature of the data gathered,which lacked the rigor of modern-day scientific studies.However, this review could lead to future research inquiries on the effectiveness of these approaches. Osteopathic physicians and osteopaths should embrace theirhistorical osteopathic heritage by continuing the workof our predecessors and combining their hands-on experience and osteopathic principles with modern medicaltreatment and rigorous scientific standards.