NEW TREATMENT.

Northern Advocate, 1 December 1921, Page 2

NEW TREATMENT.

TO RELIEVE BLINDNESS.

Lord Grey of Falloden being nearly tlind, and having consulted all the most famous oculists in vain, is now undergoing treatment of an entirely new sort., thanks to which it is hoped that he may be enabled to read again. The treatment consists of manipulation a sort of massage —of certain vertebrae in the neck. First practised in America, where it is known as "chiropractic," the treatment is just beginning to find a vogue in England. It is based on the following theory. All pain and, disease are nervous in origin. All the nerves of the body pass through the spinal column on their way to the brain ,and the origin of nearly everytrouble is to be found there, and can be cured there. Often, in fact usually, without the sufferer being aw.are of the fact, one of his twenty-six vertebrae is slightly displaced—perhaps by a fall or a twist —not enough to cause him immediate discomfort or pain, but enough to press upon the chord of nerves within. It is such a pressure, according to "chiropractic," that is the cause of every disease in any part of the body.

If you go to a chiropractic doctor (rays "Everyday Science") with for instance, a mysterious pain in a toe or a linger, he makes you lie on your face, and with expert fingures gently searches for a misplaced vertebra. Probably he finds a spot which you find slightly tender to touch. That tenderness (anknown of by you previously) is a sign of the displacement of the bone, and of its pressure on the nerve, which is starting to set up arthritis in the joint at the far end of your body. Manipulative treatment, the chiropractic doctor claims will replace the bone and relive the pressure, and .the arteritis v;ill disappear then of its own accord, the cause being removed. Like/ all pioneers, the professors of "chiropractic" are almost fanatic believers in it, and claim that every disease, even cancer, has its origin in a misplaced vertrbra, and can be cured simply by manipulation. That claim is almost certainly extravagant; backbone manipulation will not prove a panacea maniall ills. But it has effected cures; :n certain cases it has effected almost instant cures and improvements so rapid as to seem miraculous, and it deserves thorough expert investigation and study. i