“How are you?” “How have you been?” The usual greetings of almost anyone you meet. They reveal that health is a major preoccupation with almost everyone. It has been one of mankind’s greatest concerns since man first learned to bathe his wounds in water and rub his painful big toe.
Other possessions seem of little importance when one does not have good health. You can’t work well. You cannot enjoy recreation. You can’t be happy in your relationships with other people.
You want success in your job or your business; you need the energy, enthusiasm, initiative, and ability that are important for success in this strenuous space age. You want happiness; you want the appreciation and respect of your loved ones. All this is possible when you have good health.
What, then, are the chances today to live a normally sick-free life? When you get sick, what are your chances of getting well quickly without an excessive loss of time and money?
Despite the many advances of science and medicine in dealing with problems of health and disease, there are startling facts which indicate that the state of health of our people is steadily worsening and that more and more persons are suffering from some disability that interferes with their normal daily activities.
In our space age, with its population explosion, the solving of health problems is becoming more complex. As soon as one major sickness is solved, there are new ones to take its place.
Public health, hygiene and better living conditions have cut down many of the old-time contagious diseases, only to be replaced by many new degenerative diseases caused by the stresses and strains of modern living.
The National Health Education Committee, in its most recent publication, Facts on the Major Killing and Crippling Diseases Today-1961, reveals that 17,000,000 people are disabled by mental and emotional disorders, 11,917,000 by heart and circulatory diseases and 11,250,000 people are disabled by arthritis and rheumatic diseases. These diseases are regarded as the three leading causes of disability today.
According to the National Health Survey, sickness was responsible for 599.1 million days lost from work by all persons of seventeen years and over during the year July, 1957 to June, 1958.
Translated into dollars and cents this indicates a tremendous cost to our nation. According to the National Health Education Committee: “Based on a minimum daily wage of $10.00 (eight hours at $1.25 per hour) these 599.1 million days of lost work represent a loss in earnings by those unable to work of almost six billion dollars. This is about two-thirds of the amount to be paid as interest on our entire public debt in 1960.”
It is strange that in the United States, where scientific progress leads the world, the hospitals are crowded to capacity; a seriously-ill person frequently has to wait his turn for days and even weeks until a bed is available.
The shortage of medical doctors is acute, and is becoming more so.
We are donating astronomical sums for medical re-search in a multitude of fields, yet the hope of early conquest of numerous diseases remains small.
Medicine, which has accomplished wonders in many ways, is failing in numerous respects. More and more the public is coming to suspect that the “Man in White” is not so infallible after all; and that when a medical doctor says, “I have done everything for you that science can do and your condition is hopeless,” he may be in error.
It may be that there are many approaches to healing which have been overlooked or ignored by the medical profession in its overwhelming concentration on drugs and surgery. If “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” is a sound criterion, there is certainly at least one such non-medical method of healing which has proven its value beyond any shadow of doubt. It is the fastest growing healing art in the world, and its name is chiropractic (pronounced “ki-ro-prak’-tik” ).
Chiropractic did not come into existence until 1895 by coincidence, the same year that Roentgen discovered the X-ray. The CuriesPierre and Mariewere on the verge of commencing their studies of the mysterious Becquerel rays, which led them in turn to the discovery of radium. Sigmund Freud was still relatively unknown. Not until a decade later would Albert Einstein publish his paper on the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, which described his theory of relativity and which led ultimately to unleashing the mighty power of the atom.
In 1895, there was one chiropractor and one patient. Today, there are more than 25,000 chiropractors and thirty-five million chiropractic patients in the United States alone. This means that about one-sixth of our population has experienced the services of a chiropractor. The total of chiropractic patients within the boundaries of Continental United States is increasing at a rate of about two million a year.
In addition, chiropractic has spread far beyond our shores to include our territories and other possessions, and such nations as Great Britain and Ireland, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Scandinavian countries, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, the South American republics, India, Japan, Cuba, Greece, Switzerland, Union of South Africa, and Mexico. It is even practiced in the countries behind the “Iron Curtain.”
How can we explain the phenomenal growth and demand for the services of the chiropractic profession during these last few decades?
Millions of sick people throughout the world have turned to chiropractic because it provides a cornerstone of our knowledge of the normal and abnormal functions of the human system. Chiropractic research has discovered an important correlation between errors in bodily -mechanics and disease.
Chiropractic has played a great part in the scientific revolution of modern times. Since the profession began sixty-five years ago, it has contributed new knowledge and new concepts to the modern study of health and disease.
Because of its great efficiency in making sick people well, there has been a temptation to take chiropractic for granted. But the success of chiropractic is due to the fact that it has made several important contributions to modem science. They are as follows:
1. Anatomical disrelation can create functional disturbances in the body. This great discovery blazed a trail for the need of the study of structural anatomy as relating to posture and body mechanics in the problems of health and disease.
2. Disturbances of the nervous system are primary factors in the development of many disease conditions. This concept was laid down in 1895, long before the scientific world was aware of the great significance of the nervous system in causing disease.
3. Spinal subluxations (minor displacements of spinal bones) are a specific cause of nerve irritation or interference. It was the chiropractic profession that centered attention upon the human spine and pelvis as a significant factor in disease processes.
4. The viscera-spinal principle: nerve irritation at the spine may lead to a disturbance in the function of one or more internal organs of the body. Today this concept has been confirmed by extensive neurological research.
These four principles make up the bedrock of chiropractic practice. They have resisted all kinds of vicious attacks for sixty-five years. Today they are vindicated by clinical results and scientific research throughout the world. Spearheaded by these principles, the growth and demand for this new healing art have helped chiropractic come of age.