After his experiences with the often-draconian civil war medicine, and after many years of medical and anatomical study, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still developed the principles of osteopathy in the late 1800s. He founded the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri in 1892.
Subsequently, the teachings of osteopathy spread to England, and then to Europe and Australia. Although there were Canadian osteopaths during the last century, osteopathy gained more prominence in Canada when a school opened in Quebec in the 1970s.
Osteopathy continues to evolve, as an increasing number of manual practitioners add insight, and as science understands more and more about anatomy, physiology and biomechanics.