Description
Introduction
“Any attempt to analyse the character of J. M. Littlejohn is confronted with a complex that has no entry and no completion. He was and remains an enigma. A warm parent and a tough disciplinarian he was a quiet man, soft–spoken and with a manner that was diffident and sometimes withdrawn to the point of indifference. Wryly, perhaps, it was often noted that his farewell was always a shade more cordial than his greeting and there can be no doubt at all that he was a man who preferred to be left alone.
My first encounter with John Martin was on the cricket field, a family field it must be said and I, being something of a fast bowler at the age of eight years, had reached sufficient renown to show the head of the house something of my true metal. With all this very much in my mind, I put on every ounce of speed of which my puny arm was capable in the determination to topple the great man’s stumps. But the batsman retired without losing his wicket and the bowler never completed the over and has never quite made it ever since.
Following this early and noteworthy episode in my association with J. M. I lost touch with the family until much later and when I was in my late ‘teens. It was the ‘roaring twenties’, a time when young men wore ankle–length scarves, drove fast open motorcars, resplendent in ‘Oxford Bags’ or flannel trousers, twenty inches wide in the leg. The young ladies were no less resplendent in flesh coloured stockings, print dresses and shingled hair. The effects of the war had not been altogether effaced and the general strike of 1926 added its general misery to the hard–pressed British.
“It was in this time of depression that John Martin began his campaign to develop osteopathy in the United Kingdom. A process that continued into the thirties, with ever increasing opposition, from within and without the profession; together with the trials of teaching and the problems of clinical practice. I think that it was his diligence, devotion and sheer determination that captured my imagination with the command of my respect and dedication over many years.”
Contents
- Introduction
- Analysis of Genius
- Prelude – The Covenanters
- The Littlejohn Family
- Graduation Day 1898
- Chicago
- Badger Hall
- Epilogue
- Ave Atque Vale
- Osteopathy in Great Britain
- The Record
- Cancer –The Fundamental Physiological Principles Underlying this Abnormal Growth and Its Development
- Case Reports
- Postscript
- Graduation Speech 1992