Upon ascertaining that a certain vertebra is in normal alignment we may say with absolute certainty that the organs innervated by the nerves passing through its foramina are not and cannot be the site of any pernicious germ activities. To go further, it has been demonstrated in a number of cases that the subluxation existed before the contagion or infection developed. A man has been known to have a second Lumbar subluxation for many years without effects other than a tendency to constipation and on the appearance of a typhoid epidemic to contract the disease. Correction of the subluxation afforded a cure. Such instances might be cited in great numbers. No person without the necessary subluxation ever contracts a germ disease and the necessary subluxation can be exactly located for the vast majority of such diseases. Unfortunately it is impossible to find a person who has not some subluxations and is not, therefore, subject to some form of contagion or infection.
So far Chiropractic agrees with general knowledge of germ disease and its etiology, simply adding the explanation of susceptibility which all other modes of investigation have failed to afford. In one particular we find apparent disagreement.
We have said that several bacilli are supposed to have power to cause disease in healthy bodies. Diphtheria is a disease caused by one of these. Yet Chiropractic adjustments have rapidly aborted diphtheria, apparently proving that the body has power to react strongly enough to conquer even this germ, providing the nerve channels be opened to allow of exertion of its full activity. It is probable that all diseases fall under the same law and that no germ can find lodgment in healthy tissue. Chiropractic affirms this as a truth and as yet no experience has tended to disprove it; the belief is strengthened by the years.
The experiments which are said to have proven that certain micro-organisms can attack healthy tissue are based upon the supposition that careful examination demonstrated the absence of disease in the animals experimented upon by inoculation. Since these experiments and these examinations were made without any knowledge of vertebral subluxations, and consequently without discovering whether or not there existed latent weaknesses of various organs, we doubt the validity of the experiments. Our own examination of human and animal spines has thus far failed to discover any perfectly normal specimens.
Our clinical experience with diphtheria at least absolutely disproves the conclusions of Pasteur and others in regard to its origin.
Increase of Subluxations
It has been observed that in many instances the subluxation which existed previous to infection or contagion is greater and more noticeable during the febrile and active stage of the disease than before, and this fact has led some careless or insufficiently skilled palpaters to assume that the disease caused the subluxation.
The development of germ life is accompanied by the excretion of toxins of greater or less virulence which circulate through the blood and affect the entire body. This poison, irritating sensor nerves, brings about motor reactions in the segments irritated and, since the normal operation of the laws of reflex action is interrupted somewhat by subluxation, and since the muscles immediately around a subluxated vertebra tend to pull upon it with unequal leverage, this motor reaction is likely to increase already existing malalignments, especially in the same body segment in which the poison is generated and in which the irritation is consequently greatest. Thus subluxation is most pronounced during the activity of the disease caused by it and reacting upon it and thus a disease which began as a localized destructive process may manifest systemic effects through its action upon other abnormal spinal segments.