THE CAUSE OF DISEASE.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20862, 23 May 1933, Page 17

THE CAUSE OF DISEASE.

(By J. A. Scott, M.A.)

Chiropractic teaches that disease is due orimarily and originally, to a condition m the individual, rather than—as the world had hitherto been taught—to external influence. The actual existence of this condition is recognised by all schools of medicine under the name of "predisposition" or lack of resistance." But while this condition of predisposition has been recognised by medical practitioners for many years there is nothing in the ordinary professional literature that will tell you what this condition really IS . it is the essential merit of Chiropractic that it is able to define precisely in what the condition, consists and able also to show how to remove the predisposition. But first of all let us prove by a few simple illustrations the actual fact of this individual susceptibility or lack of resistance to disease. Even the man in the street knows to-day that thousands of persons continually hihalc the germs of tuberculosis, yet

only a smalt percentage contract the disease. Scientists have explained this by showing that the germs only affect those who have weak lungs or a lack of resistance. Again, half a dozen people partake of an indigestible meal. One of them is none the worse for it; a second suffers from indigestion; a third has a fit; a fourth gets an attack of gout; a fifth has an attack of asthma; while the sixth has diarrhoea. Here the Exciting factor, the indigestible meal, is the same in all, but the results are widely different, and this Is due to the fact that the location of the individual weakness or want of resistance is different in each case. Again: Pneumonia is commonly spoken of as being caused by a germ which has been labelled "the pneumococcus of Fraenkel." But the pneUmococcus is obviously not the primary or direct cause of the disease, for if it were, nearly every individual would ' catch" this disease, since we are constantly brought into contact with this organism. There must, therefore, be something which prevents certain individuals from bc*ng affected with pneumonia, and which makes it possible for others to contract the disease. This something is the resistance of the former and the want of such resistance in the latter. In all the cases above cited the real, fundamental, bedrock cause of the disease was not the germ or the food that was eaten, but the pre-existing weakness which was such as to make it possible for the secondary factors to obtain a foothold and make their destructive influence operate. Lack of resistance, then, is the primi ary factor in the production of disease, since in the face of a perfect resistance the action of the secondary factors—the germ, occasional wrong food, etc.—becomes impossible. Resistance thus becomes but another term for perfect functioning of the organs of the body and a perfectly harmonious whole. This perfect state of the body economy depends upon a free and uninterrupted flow of that life current or inherent vital force which it is the function of the nervous system to distribute to every cell and tissue of our being. Anything, therefore, which interferes with the conductivity of the nerves—that is with their power to transmit this vital energy—must be considered as being the primary cause of disease. What is the definite ascertained factor which brings about this interference? The Chiropractic answer is: A subluxation or slight displacement or misnlignment of one or more of the vertebra* (small bones) of the spine—a condition that so easily arises in the games and falls of childhood and in the various activities incident to everyday lite. The effect of this displacement is to cause the hard bone to press on the soft nerve tissue as the latter passes out from the spine, and this pressure obstructs or shuts off the flow of life force to the particular organ involved. Thus is produced that "predisposition" or "lack of resistance" which all schools of healing admit but which Chiropractic alone explains. When the chiropractor corrects the subluxation, the pressure is removed; the conductive power of the nerve is restored; and health quite naturally follows. —1