Technic and Practice of Chiropractic

by Joy Maxwell Loban

THE PROCESS OF CURE

Nature is the only real curative agent. Neither suggestion, manipulation, adjustment, nor any other known method applied by Man for the eradication of disease has in itself any power to heal. No man possesses power to do more than so arouse the vital energies of the patient that the body heals itself.

We contain within our own bodies the possibilities of perfect normality. Unless interfered with by powerful outside force we should continue normal from birth to death and death itself would only occur through the simultaneous wearing out of all the parts of the human mechanism. The Chiropractor, insofar as his work succeeds in its purpose, assists the body by adjusting displaced structure and affording the body a free and unhindered opportunity for the exercise of its own self-healing powers. It may be interesting and instructive to analyze the process of cure and to study the exact effects of vertebral adjustment as we have studied the exact effects of vertebral subluxation.

Cure of Simple Subluxation Disease

An acute subluxation—that is, one resulting entirely from concussion of forces within twenty-four or forty-eight hours prior to the moment of adjustment—rarely produces a condition which could be named as any particular disease. The symptoms are those of “wrenched back,” if any. A single adjustment usually suffices to correct such subluxation just as a single movement might correct a dislocated humerus within the same period, and any symptoms promptly disappear. This is probably the maximum benefit to be derived from adjustment and the best time for its administration, because it leaves the spinal column in an exactly normal condition and no more susceptible to further jars or shocks than before the injury. All disease which might have resulted from that subluxation has been fully prevented.

Older subluxations must be dealt with differently because they present a different condition. Adaptative changes have taken place in the shape of the vertebra itself and of every surrounding tissue as they prepare to make the best of their situation. But a vertebra once displaced has lost its poise and broken or modified the reflex arcs through its nerves so that it becomes more likely to respond to further forces applied, or to muscular contractions within the body, by further change of position. Such changes are always followed by further adaptation of the surrounding parts.

The degree of nerve impingement must change to keep pace with the developing malposition and thus, by gradually successive steps, disease develops in the area of peripheral distribution of the nerves. The nerve is under a thumbscrew gradually tightening.

To adjust such a vertebra many successive movements are required. An apparently full and free movement of a subluxation meets the elastic resistance of the solidly packed tissues and the pull of the modified intervertebral disk—strains at these tissues—and rebounds so as to settle almost, but not quite, in its old abnormal position. The amount gained in a single adjustment can rarely be appreciated by palpation. To the touch it would appear that no change had been made, except occasionally in the Cervical region. But with repeated adjustments the vertebra will be found to have approached its normal position. Sometimes in a few weeks, sometimes in a few months, the gain becomes palpable and then perhaps visible to the eye in thin subjects.

The relief of impingement then is not usually an instantaneous process, but proceeds by gradual steps. Each movement of the vertebra is accompanied by a shock to the nerve against some part of which the bone is pressing, which may produce some disturbance in the diseased organs and may even appear to have aggravated disease for a time. Some pain and soreness around the vertebra may accompany the necessary adaptative changes of shape which readapt the tissues to their proper shape and relation.

As the impingement of the nerve is gradually relieved the disease is gradually modified and finally disappears. As the course of adjustments nears its conclusion and the impingement has been reduced to a comparatively slight one there may appear a stage of irritation of the nerve which is a reduplication of the first steps which appeared in the development of the disease. As most subluxations appear not all at once but by a series of changes, so disease develops synchronously, passing from stage to stage with the changes in the impingement. Often it passes through first an acute and active stage due to irritation and then a chronic and comparatively passive stage due to heavier, inhibiting impingement.

Under adjustment these successive stages tend to reappear in reverse order, the most alarming sometimes appearing last and just before the cure is completed. It must be remembered that from the moment one practitioner administers medicine or other remedy and the other adjusts a vertebra, the clinical courses differ widely. No text-book on medical practice has as yet described the clinical course of the various diseases under Chiropractic adjustment.

In chronic diseases where the nerves are paralyzed there may be a period under adjustment during which no change is apparent. This is followed by a period of rapid gain leading to complete recovery. This may be accounted for by the fact that the nerves are degenerated and must be repaired all along their course before communication is reestablished between nerve centers and peripheral organs. When this repair is sufficiently completed to allow communication, the cure is really well advanced, although evidence of it then first appears. This has been noted especially in locomotor ataxia.

Cure of a Germ Disease

First, under adjustment, the acute or acutely increased impingement is relieved. The caliber of the blood-vessels is at once regulated and the destructive action of fever checked. At the same time the vitality of the local tissue in which the germs are active is suddenly increased and there ensues a struggle between the body, as represented by its phagocytes and auto-protective chemicals, and the germs, which if adjustments be continued results in the rapid destruction of the germ colony. Also the elimination of the toxins already in the body proceeds so rapidly that if the fever can be held in check it takes only a short time for the body completely to overcome and eradicate the germs.

Cure of Mental Disease

Mental diseases—so-called—usually depend upon disturbance of the blood-supply to the brain, controlled by the Cervical sympathetic. Adjustments, relieving the pressure on the sympathetic ganglia or cord and perhaps the direct impingement from the vertebral arteries, restore a normal circulation to the brain. The time required by Nature to effect a cure depends upon the rapidity with which the impingement is removed and the amount and character of the damage to brain tissue which must be repaired. The cure often requires time for a change of materials in brain cells or fibre tracts, by which they are reconstructed and again become capable of expressing normal function.

Cure of Dietetic Disease

When the subluxation is corrected, or partially so, the appetite changes and the craving for food becomes more normal. Adjustments may lessen a voracious appetite, increase a too capricious one, or abolish a perverted. At the same time the stomach is enabled to digest its contents more properly, the intestines to take it up and continue it, and the tissues to assimilate that which is brought to them. The body eliminates its waste with less effort and in some extreme cases the first effect of the adjustment may be to cause vomiting and diarrhea and thus purge the alimentary tract of materials which have become unusable.

If injurious diet be persisted in the effects of the adjustments will be partly counteracted, the tendency of the poisons generated within the body being to increase subluxation while the tendency of the adjustments is to correct them.

Cure of Poisoning Cases

In acute poisoning by way of the alimentary canal and sometimes when poison has been injected hypodermically, the body rids itself of the menace to its integrity by means of vomiting, diarrhea, and increased secretion of urine. Chronic cases tend rather toward the gradual absorption and removal from the body of the poisons and their cure depends upon the cessation of the poisoning; i. e., it is useless to try to cure a morphine case while the patient is still using the drug.

In acute poisoning the muscular contraction often increases subluxation and counteracts the effect of the adjustments, so that it becomes necessary to give very frequent adjustments until relief is had.

Cure of Exposure Disease

After the acute irritation of nerves arising from the exposure and causing irritation has been removed, perhaps by the first adjustment, if the exposure is not repeated the body heals itself with great rapidity, repairing with comparative ease the damage done.

Cure of Bodily Excess Disease

This depends upon the nature of the excess. If it be overeating, perhaps a more moderate diet will of itself and without adjustments enable the body to rid itself of the bad effects and restore general equilibrium. Adjustments will aid and accelerate this process. Venereal excess is most often engendered by an improper state of mind, perhaps demanding attention as a mental disorder, or by an irritation of the genital organs which demands local adjustment for its relief. Normality of the reproductive tract leads to sane forgetfulness and libidinous habits always suggest sexual weakness or disease. Often where a cure would be possible with right habits, no cure can be effected without their correction. A little good sound advice which will arouse the will of the patient to co-operation may aid. Boys with the masturbation habit offer small chance for favorable results in enuresis or nervous disorders unless the secondary cause be understood and overcome.