School Dis-eases
At one time the school was thought to be largely responsible for the spread of dis-eases among children, but this idea is changing in later years. In reality there are no specific school dis-eases. The dis-eases that have been so referred to are merely those abnormal conditions incident to childhood and youth. Rosenau gives a very interesting article on this subject. He says: “Parents naturally come to regard the school as a veritable pesthouse for the spread of communicable dis-eases of childhood—especially measles, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, common colds, etc. Many of these dis-eases prevail in epidemic form during the summer time, when school is closed, and under other circumstances which show the epidemics may be independent of school attendance. It is difficult to determine just what part is played by the commingling of the pupils in school in the spread of such dis-eases and what part is due to other factors. Some dis-eases take a sudden jump in the autumn with the opening of school. Further, these dis-eases are not contracted by the school children alone, but are carried home to the other members of the household, and thereby create secondary foci. This problem of the communicable dis-eases and the school is far from solution; the spread of these dis-eases has not been conquered by medical inspection, and their relation to school attendance is one that needs careful observation and study.”
Thus we see that the cause of school dis-eases has not been answered, and we find in this article that which strengthens the contention of Chiropractic—that the cause of the dis-ease is in the child and not something introduced from the outside.
The environment of the school creates a necessity for certain internal adaptative actions, and if this adaptative action can not take place the result will be an abnormal condition peculiar to the necessity for adaptation. The lack of adaptation may result in incoördinations of the respiratory tract; incoördinations of the eyes, involving not only the sight but the different tissues and secretions of the eyes; incoördinations involving the heart, throat and mouth and many conditions of eruptions of the skin. Especially do we find deformities and incoördinations of the spine and spinal column.
In diagnostic terminology these conditions would be called bronchitis, bronchopneumonia, pleurisy, myopia, catarrhal conjunctivitis, trachoma, cardiac dis-eases, such as endocarditis, etc. The mouth, nose and throat dis-eases would be coryza, adenoid growths, enlarged tonsils, tonsilitis, nose bleed, etc. These conditions could all be prevented or corrected by adjusting the causative subluxations.