From the point of view of A.T.Still, the father of Osteopathy, it is a proper manual medicine.

Through the body assessment and manipulation, this medicine stimulate and improve the self-healing system, intrinsic of our body that should be able to heal all the problems by itself. So, no drugs would be necessary if at the onset of symptoms, the person would rely to this system for the self-healing. The problems appears when this system get blocked (in Osteopathy this calls physiological dysfunction) and it is not able to proceed with the 100% of the healing capacity.

Here the Osteopath trough the assessment recognize the dysfunction,  through the manipulation he or she realigns this dysfunction leaving the body heal itself and the symptoms disappear.