Robert Maigne, who eschews chiropractic more so than osteopathic concepts, is considered a pioneer of medical manual therapy. His techniques of assessment and manipulation are rationalized by deductive reasoning applied to intimate knowledge of anatomy. He writes with an unabashed, authoritative attitude: here are my observations and experience; they make good neuroanatomical sense; my methods work.
This book does not pretend to profer scientific proof. The scattered references, listed in a bibliography at the end of the book, span the last century, and are predominantly descriptive articles supporting Maigne’s rationales. Readers seeking a compilation of recent relevant clinical trials will be disappointed. This recent edition, for example, refers to the first edition of Haldeman’s Advances in the principles and practice of chiropractic, and illustrates manoeuvres Maigne still advocates for screening for vertebrobasilar insufficiency.
Conversely, anyone desirous of learning a practical, comprehensive system of manual assessment and treatment (Maigne emphasizes manipulation, but includes massage, mobilization, physical modalities, exercise, supports and injections in the neuromusculoskeletal armamentarium) will be delighted and rewarded. The foundational sciences of anatomy, biomechanics and pain physiology are dealt with summarily in individual sections. Most of this effectively illustrated (with diagrams, photographs and brief case histories) text is devoted to describing the clinical manifestations, assessment and conservative management of symptoms and syndromes from head to knee, including “pseudovisceral pain of spinal origin”. Many of Maigne’s autoeponymous assessment (e.g., skin rolling, facet rub) and spinal and peripheral joint manipulative (e.g., rule of pain-free and opposite motion) techniques are taught in chiropractic curricula, sometimes without reference to their origin.