Part 35

Abnormal chemical action.

Tissue destruction or nerve irritation by chemical poisons.

Reflex motor disturbances which further limit digestive power.

Abnormal mental condition.

Waste of nerve energy with production of toxins.

General metabolic disturbance.

Increased disease wherever disease previously existed.

These are offered merely as illustrations. There are many accessory chains which aid in the production or development of disease and act as secondary causes.

Concussion of Forces

Man was so created, so provided with means for repair, growth, etc., that the body tends to maintain its own functional balance--perfect harmony among all its parts--unless interfered with by some outside agency. There are certain natural laws such as the law of gravitation and the law of momentum and inertia which operate without regard for man or man’s welfare. If man, wittingly or unwittingly, allows himself to come into violent conflict with one of these laws by falling to the ground or in meeting sudden and unexpected opposing force or mass while in motion, that which may be termed a concussion is produced by the meeting of the outside force and the internal bodily resistance.

Many such concussions may occur without serious damage. Some produce wounds or injuries which it is possible for the body to heal without causing serious disturbance of function. Other concussions are so violent as to produce displacement of structure which tends to remain permanently. Under Spino-Organic Connection will be found an explanation of the manner in which force applied to various parts of the body tends to affect the spine.

Now the displacement of a bone cannot be corrected by the body without outside aid. No method is provided for such correction. Produced by outside force affecting the body, it can only be reduced by outside force. It is this failure of Nature to make man adaptable to every untoward circumstance which renders him susceptible to disease.

Subluxation

As has been previously stated by no means all concussions of forces produce subluxation. (All subluxations, however, are produced by concussion of forces.) It may be added that not all subluxations impinge nerves and that when they do not so encroach upon nerve tissue they produce no noticeable effect after the first temporary soreness has disappeared.

Every subluxation, however, evidences a tendency to disease. Once moved from its normal position and the poise and symmetry of the body disturbed, there are influences which tend more readily to affect the same vertebra. The subluxated vertebra is more easily disturbed by jars, strains, etc., than the normal one because such jars are less regularly distributed to all its parts. A reflex muscular tension due to other and more pronounced subluxations and their disease effects may in turn increase the slight deviations throughout the spine, rendering them in their turn capable of producing disease. When the spine or any part of it has lost its perfect regularity disease is made possible, if not a fact at once. The average number of subluxations in each individual is about nine and one-third. Of this number probably not more than one-third (though no accurate figures are available) are actually productive of conditions nameable as disease at any given time. Discrimination between those which do, and those which do not, produce discoverable symptoms in a given case is a matter which requires a nice technical skill and perfect judgment.

Impingement of Nerves

When a vertebra has lost its normal articular relations with its fellows and occupies an abnormal position as a consequence in regard to all surrounding or adjacent tissues it may impinge nerve tissue in two ways, by tension or by constriction. By the displacement of one vertebra of a pair the size and shape of the intervertebral foramen may be altered (occlusion) constricting the nerve which passes through the opening. That this change in the size and shape of the foramina does frequently occur is shown by the frequency with which alterations in the shape of vertebrae appear in dry spines, by post-mortems which have demonstrated the altered foramina in the cadaver and by permanent occlusion of the foramina in ankylosed spines so that the occlusion may be preserved. Adding cartilage changes in the intervertebral disks to alterations in bone shape and position, especially the latter, we find full and sufficient reason for all the pathological phenomena which follow the subluxation. Explain it as you will, these morbid results do follow subluxation and can be experimentally produced in animals. Moreover, the disease may be directed to a desired organ or region by selection of the particular vertebra to be displaced.

The suboccipital, sacral, and coccygeal nerves cannot be constricted as they pass through the foramina because they do not emerge through complete rings formed of separate and movable bones. But these nerves may be pressed upon or stretched by displaced bone, as may also the great gangliated cord of the sympathetic, especially the Cervical portion of it. Tension of the Cervical sympathetic cord by subluxation of vertebrae is a very common occurrence.

Whether the impingement be by constriction or by tension the effect is much the same depending upon the degree to which the molecular continuity of the nerve substance is impaired--interference with the function of the organ connected with the nerve and sometimes swelling and pain in the nerve itself followed by degeneration. The effects are chiefly noticeable in peripheral tissues. S. Weir Mitchell says (1872), “A continuous pressure upon a nerve results in the degeneration of the nerve and a disturbance of function of the parts innervated by that nerve.” No clearer statement can be made.

It must not be understood that all nerve impingement is due directly to subluxation of a vertebra. A dislocated shoulder would produce a similar effect of nerve tension. But dislocated shoulders are seldom met with as permanent conditions. Likewise there may be secondary impingement from new growths, themselves due to some primary subluxation. Aneurism of the thoracic aorta often produces hoarseness by impingement of the recurrent laryngeal.

Not all impingement is sufficient to produce noticeable disease. To a certain extent the power of adaptation inherent in the body can overcome its deleterious effects and suppress all signs of its existence until an overtax upon bodily energy lessens this adaptative power. Then disease appears and we say that the overtax caused it.

Excitation or Inhibition

A slight impingement serves as a mechanical irritant to increase the action of the nerve and the functions of the attached peripheral organs. Such stimulation beyond the normal is always followed by a reaction, or fall to subnormal action.

Heavy impingement, especially the impingement due to marked occlusion of foramina, partly or wholly paralyzes the affected nerves. Often the impingement produces only a latent weakness in some organ, a weakness which may be brought to light only through the introduction of some secondary cause which takes advantage of the susceptibility of the organ to produce some definite disease. As an instance of this we may mention typhoid fever. No typhoid case is found without subluxation in the region of the second Lumbar; yet the latent weakness produced by that subluxation may not have been observed until the typhoid germ found a fertile feeding and breeding ground in the weakened tissue and proceeded to multiply there and develop its toxins.

Effect Upon Single Cell

Each nerve cell is trophic to its processes and to the tissue cells to which these processes are distributed. The growth, nutrition and repair of each cell of the body is dependent upon the integrity of the axon which supplies it. The effect of nerve impingement upon the single cell is a weakening of cell structure and a disturbance, slight or great, of the special function possessed by that cell. Dunglisson says of diseases, “All ... are dependent upon modified cell-action.”

Effect Upon Organs

Each organ is but an aggregation of cells of some special type or kind. Nerve Impingement usually involves either a whole nerve trunk or many of its fibres and thus weakens either the entire organ or many of its cells and increases or diminishes its special function. Some organs are innervated by more than one nerve and may be injured only in part by a localized impingement.