The Drive for Legitimation by Osteopathy and Chiropractic in Australia: Between Heterodoxy and Orthodoxy

Abstract

This article examines the drive for legitimation on the part of osteopathy and chiropractic in Australia. A brief history is presented of the development of these two manual medical systems down under, their respective drives for statutory registration and public funding of their training institutions (all of which are embedded in public universities), and their respective niches within the context of the Australian dominative medical system. Ironically, although osteopathy is politically strong in both the United States, where it has evolved in osteopathic medicine and a parallel medical system to biomedicine, and in Britain, where it remains primarily a manual medical system, chiropractic over time became politically stronger than osteopathy in Australia. The author argues that although chiropractic and osteopathy remain distinct and related systems in Australia, from the perspective of the Australian state, they essentially are one and the same.