Excerpts from the writings of the late Dr. Claude Clarence Heckman, DO
Osteopathic Physician and Surgeon, and the father of Myopathic Muscular Therapy
The New Science of Myopathy is the Knowledge, Understanding and Treatment of ‘Muscle Disease’ and the disease that is usually present in the muscles of the spinal column is “MYOSITIS.”
Myositis is INFLAMMATION in the muscles. Inflammation in the muscles is caused by progressive and residual tension in the muscles, with a resulting congestion (impaired circulation of blood) and ACIDOSIS and FIBROSIS (adhesions).
The hypertension in the muscles is caused by:
- Physical Strain
- Nervous Strain
- Cold Temperatures
- Inflammation in Muscles
Once there is inflammation in muscles, the inflammation causes more abnormally great tension, and a vicious circle develops which tends to make the condition chronic. The more tension, the more inflammation; the more inflammation, the more tension. The Condition is [solved] by Progressive Relaxation of the muscles.
Progressive Relaxation is accomplished by:
- Muscular Manipulative (Myopathic) Treatment – specific treatment to the definitely contractured muscles with the hands and fingers.
No other treatment can compare with the hands and fingers in treating the spinal and other muscles. Often rest and heat are not sufficient to relax the extreme tension in the muscles, and specific Myopathic Treatment is necessary to cure the condition.
Acute inflammation in spinal muscles is usually cured in a few days. Chronic inflammation in the bones (osteitis) and osteoarthritis is usually cured in several months.
THE MYOPATHIC SPINAL LESION
– CHIEF CAUSE OF DISEASE –
“The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no Good Theory of the Cause of a Disease that does not at once suggests a Cure.”
The PRINCIPLE of the MYOPATHIC SPINAL LESION will explain most diseases because it causes most disease, because it interferes with the normal blood and nerve supply to various organs.
Many people believe that contractured muscles – progressive and residual tension in muscles – constitutes most back trouble, and that muscular manipulation is the best treatment. But very few people understand that the MYOPATHIC SPINAL LESION – inflammation in the spinal muscles, joints and nerves, is the Chief Cause of VISCERAL DISEASE – disease of the internal organs of the head, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis.
Claude Bernard, the father of modern physiology, discovered in 1851, that irritation of the spinal nerves interferes with circulation of blood. The medical profession has made practically no application of that principle. The osteopathic profession applied that principle in a form of muscular manipulative technique from 1892 to about 1930. But that technique is practically extinct now.
“The Myopathic Spinal Lesion irritates nerves and interferes with blood and nerve supply and is the Chief Cause of all disease, that is, inflammations, degenerations, tumors, and circulatory disturbances like hemorrhage, embolism and thrombosis.”
– Claude Clarence Heckman, DO