Mo. ° / °
    Ariz. ° / °
    Calif. ° / °

Being a healthcare practitioner who incorporated mind, body and spirit into his method of healing and treatment for patients, it is no surprise that Dr. A.T. Still was influenced by living among the Shawnee Tribe for a time in his life. It is also through his father’s bloodline that Dr. Still actually claimed his American Indian heritage as a descendant of the now-known Lumbee Tribe.

Jason Haxton, MA, director, Museum of Osteopathic MedicineSM, shared his knowledge about the foundation of osteopathy and about Dr. Still — the physician and man — in his presentation to ATSU faculty, staff and students on the Arizona campus on Jan. 23.

“Dr. Still’s father, Abram was a Methodist circuit-riding preacher and a physician, whose work led the family to move several times between 1834 and 1841, to circuits in Tennessee and Missouri,” said Haxton. “Finally, in 1851, Abram was assigned to head-up the Wakarusa Shawnee Mission in Kansas.” It was then that Abram, his family and Dr. A.T. Still came to interact with the Shawnees.

“The relationship between them was not good initially, but over time, Dr. Still’s mother and father began to educate and exchange information with the Shawnee Tribe,” Haxton added.

The root of providing care for underserved populations is part of Dr. Still’s osteopathic principles evident today. “At a time when the Still family was at their poorest, they lived in the wild,” said Haxton. “He was known to wear the same clothes repeatedly so that he could serve those with no money.”

A.T. Still Museum collage

The collections of the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine include more than 100,000 objects, photographs, documents, and books dating from the early 1800s to the present (focused mainly on 1870–1940). The core of the collection consists of artifacts from A. T. Still's professional and private life, most of them donated by Dr. Still's daughter, Blanche Laughlin, and members of her family.

Since the founding of the Museum in 1934, other family members, DOs, and Museum supporters have donated many additional artifacts that reflect the ongoing history of the osteopathic profession. The research collections of the International Center for Osteopathic History (ICOH) also include many former holdings of the A.T. Still Memorial Library, for which the Museum assumed responsibility in 1997.