Gentle And Effective Treatment For The Whole Body

Chiropractic

The practice of therapeutic spinal manipulation is at least 5000 years old. It was first recorded in China and widely employed in Ancient Greece. After the fall of Rome in AD 476 much ancient wisdom was lost and as a result Chiropractic, along with other disciplines, came to be regarded as an “alternative” therapy.

Modern Chiropractic began in 1895 when Harvey Lillard underwent treatment in Iowa by Daniel David Palmer. Palmer was a “magnetic healer”, but his methods initially failed on Lillard. On examining Lillard’s spine a prominent vertebra was discovered. Palmer gave it an energetic manual thrust and soon Lillard was on the road to recovery. Palmer was already of the belief that conventional medicine was lacking since drugs affected the whole body when only one organ might be sick. This merely affected the symptoms of a disease and not its underlying cause. He was convinced that the human body possessed its own natural healing forces and his experience with Lillard gave him further insight. He began examining the vertebra of other patients and found that spinal adjustments often cured ailments which had been untreatable by conventional medicine. A subsequent patient gave his method the name, based on the Greek for “done by hand” - cheiro praktikos. Over the years the theories and practices were refined by Palmer and his growing band of followers.

Unique terminology was evolved :

• Subluxations - chiropractic displacements of the spine

• Innate Intelligence - the life-force of the individual

• Universal Intelligence - the creative force linked to Innate Intelligence.

In brief, the overall theory of Chiropractic is that subluxations of the spine can produce a wide range of symptoms, including - backache, deafness, digestive disorders, heart disease, and skin problems. If the subluxation is found and corrected healing takes place without the need for drugs. Drugs, according to conventional medicine, suppress disease. Whereas with Chiropractic, and other alternative therapies, the patient’s own powers of healing are stimulated to encourage recovery.

Within a few years there were a number of Schools of Chiropractic. In the intervening years Chiropractic has become the most widely practiced medical therapy, after medicine and dentistry, and has been legally recognised by many governments. The early claims of being able to cure almost anything have been largely dropped and it is now recognised as a safe, drug free therapy which is effective with a wide range of musculo-skeletal disorders. Chiropractic is now fully mature, with improved education, licensing and recognised qualifications. The Anglo-European College Of Chiropractic (AECC) was set up in Bournemouth in 1965. The European Chiropractors’ Union was formed in 1984, and in 1988 the UK Council For National Academic Standards validated a BSc Degree in Chiropractic.

At the time when Chiropractic was developing, Osteopathy was already established and over the years techniques have been borrowed from each other. Osteopaths, like Chiropractors, believe that the body can be stimulated to heal itself, but they view the body as a fluid system and remove muscular inhibition of movement by soft tissue massage followed by the “long-lever” pulling of bones into place. Chiropractors, on the other hand, look upon the body as a network of nerves which control every function of the body. They use a “short-lever” approach, which means high velocity, low amplitude thrusting. In other words, short, sharp, precisely directed thrusts on the joint to push the affected bones back into alignment. The speed of these adjustments is intended to overcome muscular resistance.

There is no definitive answer as to whether Chiropractic is more effective than Osteopathy. The effectiveness ultimately depends on the skill of the individual practitioner and the responsiveness of the individual patient.