Part 54

=Addison’s Disease.=--Few cases reported, and these slow cures.

=Adenoids of Pharynx.=--Prognosis so good as to contraindicate operation in every case. The lymphoid growths gradually and slowly absorb under adjustment.

=Adiposis Dolorosa.=--Only one case seen, the Derkum case. This reduced in six months of adjustment from 360 to 280 lbs. in weight, and was improved in every particular. No final report received.

=Alcoholism.=--Adjustments greatly aid a cure if alcohol be discontinued at once, or if the daily consumption is gradually and steadily decreased. No permanent cure can be secured without the aid of the patient. Acute alcoholic intoxication may be lessened at once by the aid of a single adjustment.

=Amenorrhoea.=--Prognosis excellent. One to several months required. Conservative amenorrhoea, as in tuberculosis or other wasting disease, disappears only with the occasion.

=Anaemia.=--If primary, yields slowly but surely. Secondary anaemia depends upon some disease process and its prognosis is that of the disease which produces it.

=Angina Pectoris.=--A case for careful diagnosis. False angina recovers with general building of nervous system. True angina, usually associated with arteriosclerosis, is frequently fatal and death may occur during any adjustment. If this does not happen most cases recover, though slowly. Let me repeat, there is great danger in handling true angina pectoris.

=Anidrosis.=--Usually responds to adjustments for the kidneys.

=Ankylosis.=--Almost any ankylosis, except that in which there is gross deformity of the bones, would yield to repeated applications of force along right lines. Only vertebral ankyloses are amenable to Chiropractic adjustment and those are usually broken in time.

=Anterior Poliomyelitis.=--Chiropractic experience with “infantile paralysis” has been very extensive and gratifying. During the febrile stage the disease may be aborted by one or several adjustments with only slight and transient paralyses resulting. The chronic paralysis which follows an unadjusted case is curable, but restoration of the motor function and trophic tone of the paralyzed members is delayed while the ventral horn cells are regenerated, the axons rebuilt, and the atrophied muscles redeveloped. Often no apparent results will be obtained for one or several months, after which gradual improvement progresses to a complete cure.

=Aphonia.=--Prognosis excellent. No failures reported.

=Apoplexy.=--The occasional case in which a premonitory partial paralysis precedes real hemorrhage responds remarkably to adjustment so that with care the hemorrhage may be averted. After hemorrhage the absorption of the clot is slow and tedious, but about 50 per cent recover.

=Appendicitis.=--In the early stages of the acute form, and in nearly all chronic cases, recovery is almost certain under adjustments. Signs of suppuration indicate immediate operative interference and drainage, and failure to read the signs may lead to rupture, peritonitis, and death. Acute cases yield very quickly as a rule.

=Arthritis Deformans.=--In well developed cases some almost complete cures have been effected in periods varying from two to four years. Prognosis good as to relief, but poor as to complete recovery.

=Ascites.=--Fair prognosis, depending upon the nature of the portal obstruction. Cirrhotic ascites does not yield well.

=Asthma.=--Spasmodic bronchial asthma is almost always curable except in the very aged, but the usual posterior curvature in lower cervicals and upper dorsals requires time and persistent heavy adjustments for its correction. The asthmatic paroxysm may be relieved instantaneously, but will recur at intervals for a long period before the cure is fully established. The cardiac form of asthma depends upon restoration of compensation for a leaking valve, and yields by irregularly progressive diminution.

=Blindness.=--As a condition, without qualifying terms, blindness offers a bad prognosis. Most cases fail to develop sight under adjustments. Yet some individual cures in optic atrophy, in detached retina, and in other conditions, attest the possibility. Cataract blindness perhaps yields best.

=Bradycardia.=--If symptomatic, yields as does the disease. If primary, a few adjustments are usually sufficient. In one case the first adjustment increased to 90 a pulse which had been at 60 for fifteen years. In twenty-four hours, without further adjustment, the rate had settled at 69 and there remained.

=Bright’s Disease.=--Prognosis good, but some cases terminate abruptly with intercurrent disease, such as pneumonia. There is danger until the albuminuria has ceased and the strength of the patient markedly improved. Probably the diseased kidney area is simply walled off from the healthy tissue, which then hypertrophies and takes on the work of the entire organ, or pair of organs. If too much damage has been done, the case will terminate fatally in time, even though its progress is checked by adjustments.

=Bronchitis.=--Acute bronchitis is quickly checked as a rule. Chronic bronchitis may prove intractable, or may require many months for a cure. There are exceptional quick cures of the most chronic cases.

=Caked Breast--Mammary Inflammations=.--Rapid and positive cure follows proper adjustments.

=Cerebral Softening.=--Prognosis bad.

=Cerebrospinal Meningitis.=--Serious always, but no fatalities reported in adjusted cases. Failure to modify fever and cervical retraction within two or three hours, and with one to ten adjustments, is alarming.

=Chickenpox.=--Like smallpox and the other exanthemata, chickenpox should be modified at once by adjustment and all cases should be light, eruption hastened, and fever quickly broken. Sometimes the rash may be strongly marked and the disease run its usual course in all particulars except fever and prostration, being a febrile with absence of all the consequences of fever.

=Cholangitis.=--Recovers quickly under adjustment.

=Cholecystitis.=--Prognosis excellent.

=Chorea.=--Prognosis excellent in acute and subacute cases, less favorable in chronic. No figures are available, but many chronic cases fail to respond at all.

=Cirrhosis of Liver.=--Doubtful. No statistics have been compiled, but it seems probable that most cases are unmodified by adjustment.