Part 41

This law applies throughout the body and can be fully demonstrated by any one having a complete knowledge of nerve connections and body segmentation upon being furnished with a complete and accurate history of any injury to the body. It goes further than this. Toxins or other secondary causes operating within the body tend always to produce their motor reactions and consequent effect upon any subluxated vertebrae in the same body segment with the peripheral irritation, so that if the stomach contain a poison which affects the spine the sixth or seventh Dorsal vertebrae will be most affected and the stomach itself the organ to suffer most.

The spinal column is peculiarly adapted, with its strong ligaments, its cartilage cushions, its perfect flexibility and flexuousness, to withstand jars and shocks. Yet the spine is the door by which disease enters the organism. Concussion of forces, the energy from the environment encountering the bodily resistance, is of no serious effect upon the organism--of no permanent or irreparable effect--unless it affects the spine and brings about vertebral subluxation, disturbance of the normal alignment between vertebrae, and thereby interrupts the perfect healing and controlling influence exerted by the vital part of the segment, the central nerve portion.

When a concussion of forces does produce subluxations, does disturb the perfect poise and balance of that center of structure of the body, its consequences affect an entire body segment, producing, or tending to produce, disturbances through the entire segment.

Disease is the indirect consequence of the contact of man with his environment and is natural but not normal.

The spinal column is a center or a series of centers for disease. In this column will be found the primary cause--the introductory element--by which disease first makes its appearance in a previously healthy body.

Comparative Anatomy

The study of Comparative Anatomy is necessary to a complete understanding of the human organism. We may trace in the simplest forms of animal life the beginnings and foreshadowings of the same plan of organization. We may follow it through the ascending scale and watch its complexity develop, and by viewing each step in the process we may come fully to realize that the original plan has been preserved throughout, though often in such form that by study of the single species we should fail to recognize it.

We lack space for complete consideration of this subject and shall merely suggest certain facts and phases. No clear analogy can be drawn until we reach the worm, with its rudimentary spinal column and nerves. Roughly speaking, dissection of one spinal segment with its nerves and their controlled area--if this were possible--would separate from the rest a fairly regular layer similar to all the other layers. This is the primitive segmentation.

It is shown much more clearly in the fish but the segments have begun to curve with their periphery directed slightly caudad and some have already shown a preponderating growth over other segments and a change of shape from the original symmetry.

The reptiles and birds show still more complicated segmentation. It is notable that in these lower animals the purely reflex portion of the nervous system is highly developed while the volitional and sensory portions, the cerebral hemispheres, are yet rudimentary. In birds, particularly, the cerebellum is very highly developed because its function of co-ordination of muscles for the maintainence of equilibrium is required in a high degree for flying.

Those land animals which walk on all fours approach still closer but their arrangement is much more readily comprehensible than in man. As the animal stands on all fours with head extended, a gigantic cleaver slicing out each vertebra and pair of nerves and slicing straight toward the base of support might be said to divide the body approximately according to the structural and functional arrangement in segments. Yet no segment so separated would exactly correspond to the nerve distribution; there would be enlargement of some organs with extension into the zone previously occupied by their neighbors; enlargement here and atrophy there; invagination of one organ by another and overlapping and intermingling of parts. Even the relation between the spinal cord segments and the vertebrae has departed much from the primitive so that the growth of the vertebrae has exceeded that of the cord and the cord terminates opposite the Lumbar region instead of at the end of the Sacral canal. It may here be remarked that in the human embryo the cord at first occupies the entire length of the neural canal formed within the vertebrae; that in the adult it terminates opposite the lower border of the body of the first Lumbar vertebra and that the nerves, still retaining their original foramina of exit and their relation to the somatic segments, pass downward within the canal to their respective openings and collectively form a brush like mass called “cauda equina.”

Causes of Segmental Changes

The causes of the change in the shape, form, and relation of the different segments are functional: the body changes to meet the changing needs of its environment and the steady progressive functional development from one species to another.

When the animal at last assumes the erect position, doing more intricately and intelligently the bidding of a developing and improving central nervous system, the change of position and the force of gravity bring about a gradual downward, or caudad, tendency of the parts of the somatic segments most remote from the spine and of the nerves which supply them.

The nerves, muscles, and bones of the lower extremities change from almost a right angle to an extremely obtuse angle, less obtuse during infancy and more so in the adult. The forelegs become arms and hang at the sides, extending downward from the part of the spine which controls them. The ribs tend more obliquely downward and outward from the spine and the tendency of all the nerves is downward from their attachment to the spinal cord to their emergence from the intervertebral foramina. In the neck and head alone is this rule varied, the tendency of the nerves and some other structures there being to run from the spine either at right angles or upward.

It seems almost symbolic and indicative of the purpose of creation that the body, which is less strong and vigorous in Man than in the lower animals, should tend more and more obliquely downward from its central axis, while the cranium, containing a highly specialized mass of cells and fibres, the organ of Mind, which marks Man’s supremacy in the animal kingdom and is his crowning glory, is reared above the body it dominates.

In all the form changes which mark the growth of the body the organs are arranged to afford the greatest possible economy of space and convenience for use. This perfect and matchless mechanism adapts itself to the changing habits and environments and to the quality and needs of the Mind which inhabits it.

Necessity for Table of Spino-Organic Connection

To the practitioner who is fully equipped with an instantly available knowledge of all the nerve connections in the body and to whom palpation of a subluxation at once suggests its somatic sphere of influence as a weakened or diseased area, or to whom mention of a disease immediately calls to mind the organ, or segment, which is primarily affected and its nerve connection with the spine, any tabulation of spino-organic connection or of diseases and adjustments, for reference, is unnecessary. But the ordinary practitioner finds it difficult to acquire and retain such an array of information and much more convenient to refer to reliable and easily read tables which will supply at once any such information desired.

No specific adjustment is possible without knowledge of the vertebra which controls the part diseased and toward the healing of which the nerve energy should be directed. Specific adjustment without correct diagnosis is of course impossible. And whenever correct diagnosis has been made it is essential that the mind of the Chiropractor should revert to one certain vertebra which he expects to find subluxated as the primary cause of the disease.

Diagnosis is essential in order to find out what organ is the site of the disease, for all disease is primarily segmental. The location of the disease having been determined, a quick reference to a table showing the spinal connection with that location makes specific adjustment possible. The value of specific, as against general, adjustments will be considered under “Practice.”

Method of Investigation

One who wishes to determine for himself the proper specific adjustment for a certain disease must, in order to be able to attach any weight to his conclusions or to announce them with any hope of credence by the scientific world, proceed very much after the following method, which sets down what may be termed “standard test conditions” for research into the spino-organic connection.

He must make a correct diagnosis which serves to determine the nature and location of the disease process. In this he may be greatly aided by vertebral palpation and nerve-tracing, especially in differential diagnosis. Any case which affords less than a quite positively correct diagnosis should be excluded from the test list because any conclusion based on a doubtful diagnosis must itself be doubtful and may be seriously misleading.

He must then ascertain as far as possible the known anatomical nerve connection between the spine and the diseased part. If several connections are known he must decide according to nervous physiology, by recognizing the morbid functions which constitute the disease and learning which nerves control these functions and which must therefore be deranged in order that the disease may exist. I may say right here that to attempt to answer the problems of Chiropractic on the assumption that standard anatomies are incorrect in their statement of nerve connections is as hopeless as the wail of the schoolboy that the answers in his arithmetic are wrong because his sums fail to come out that way.

The investigator must next be accurate in Palpation, selecting the subluxation which would, from his knowledge of the body segmentation, seem most likely to influence the nerves involved, and positively ascertaining the number of the subluxated vertebra. No one who cannot count vertebrae accurately can positively say which vertebra he has adjusted. More than that, no one who has not counted the vertebrae in the special case in question can say which vertebra he has adjusted. No mere regional localization will suffice for scientific investigation.

Correct and accurate adjustment must follow selection of the single vertebra and the adjuster must know that he has used the one special movement, or form of adjustment, which is mechanically right for that kind of subluxation and has so moved the vertebra as to release impingement. Mere movement of a vertebra is not necessarily an adjustment or even a maladjustment; it may be movement without permanent change of relation or release of impingement. (See “Preferable Adjustments,” p. 155.)

There follows the observation of the progress of the case and this must be so careful and accurate that the observer knows to a certainty whether the disease is progressing unfavorably, or favorably, or whether it has been entirely eradicated. He must know the value of every changing symptom, the real meaning of each new development. Every diagnostic method should be at his command for this work. Constant vigilance and constant thought should mark each step of his work.