Report from the War Front

Editors note: This is another post by some of the lost greats in the chiropracTIC profession here in Texas. Dr. Seymour Fischer submitted this article to me right before his passing several years ago. I am amazed at the certainty these chiropracTOR's possessed. More to come! - Eric

“Disease is not an entity, but a fluctuating condition of the patient’s body, a battle between the substance of disease and the natural self-healing tendency of the body.” Hippocrates

Since its inception more than 100 years ago, the chiropractic profession has been engaged in a war for survival against powerful enemies. Recently, more and more cracks have appeared in the enemy camp. Vitalist philosophy is making significant gains against materialist mechanism.

I quote from an article in a new magazine, “Integrative Medicine”. The article was written by Sidney Macdonald Baker, M.D. He states:

1. The concept that diseases are entities and can cause symptoms is entirely without scientific support. IT is a linguistical error that forges a false map in the imagination of professionals and lay people.
2. The ideas that each patient’s diagnostic and treatment options can be based on determinations of averages is a misuse of statistics when it serves as a diagnostic and therapeutic guide for all individuals.
3. The maxim that assumptions to explain an event should not be multiplied beyond necessity (Occam’s razor) is the logical partner of the one-disease, one treatment approach of mainstream medicine, particularly in the framework of chronic illness. Medicine is the only field claiming a scientific basis in which general systems theory-ie, that everything is interconnected—has not become the acknowledged basis for inquiry. Linear causality remains the accepted basis for etiology.

Dr. Baker further discusses cause and effect with his “Two Tacks Laws”

1. If you are sitting on a tack, it takes a lot of aspirin to make it feel good. (The proper treatment for tack sitting is tack removal.)
2. If you are sitting on 2 tacks, removing one does not result in 50% improvement. (Chronic illness is, or becomes, multi-factorial.)

Chiropractic philosophy has a parallel terminology using the term subluxation correction rather than tack removal. Chiropractic teaches that getting down to brass tacks requires the removal of cause, not the temporary alleviation of symptoms.

Dr. Baker concludes with his opinion on the importance of individuality contrasted with the concept of group therapy based on statistics of averages. He states,

“This approach is based on the recognition that individuality is spiritual as well as a biological foundation in the sense that each of us is a unique creature. Hence our patients are denied dignity when given a group identity (diagnosis) and a group treatment (the treatment of choice for that diagnosis).

Inside Out or Outside In?

Those among us who are tempted to tread the discredited road of diagnosis and treatment will find themselves being passed by medical practitioners in the opposite direction.