CONNECTED HEALTH
Trying to remain healthy and connected in a stress inducing, modern, technological age is a big challenge for us all.
Origins of Chiropractic
Chiropractic in essence was born in 1895 from a health paradigm of a naturally drug-free, vital and holistic philosophy in an era when many family doctors only had access to natural or homeopathic cures themselves.
The hands on healers of the time were often seen as bone setters (the seventh son of a seventh son lineage) or magnetic healers (using their own innate healing powers to cure the sick).
The healing touch was identified by Hippocrates (460 - 375 BCE), known as the father of medicine who said “If you would seek health, look first to the spine”.
The germ theory, published by Louis Pasteur in 1861 proved that bacteria (contagium fixum) caused diseases.
The first virus was identified by the Russian, Ivanoski in 1892: the Tobacco mosaic virus, but named as ‘virus’ by Dutchman, Beijerinck in 1898 as an infectious soluble agent (contagium vivum fluidum).
The mechanism that D.D Palmer, the discoverer and his son B.J the developer of chiropractic, proposed and researched were centred around the concept of nerve pressure leading to dis-ease.
Samuel Hahnemann, a german physician developed Homeopathy between 1790 and 1843. Homeopathy is based on a vitalistic, expressive healthcare approach where symptoms are allowed to surface and come to a head rather than suppressing them and driving them deeper into the body. The Law of Similars was discovered in 1790 when Hahnemann tested peruvian bark (the natural source of quinine and used for treatment of malaria) on himself. After taking peruvian bark repeatedly he came down with the very same symptoms of malaria. From this, Hahnemann discovered that treating a disease with a substance that produces symptoms similar to that disease will cure that disease, just as peruvian bark could cure certain cases of malaria because of its similarity of action.
So Pasteur and the early virologists were saying bacteria and virus in the blood and other body fluids and tissues were vectors of disease. Certainly with much of civilisation living with poor sanitation and hygiene at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, a host with poor immunity would certainly be susceptible to a high bacterial and viral load, leading to disease and death (think the Spanish flu epidemic, 1918 - 1920).
The Palmers and other vitalists such as Hahnemann were advocating to look at the Internal Environment of the host and optimise the health and function of the organism itself. It stands to reason and is self-evident that the host (You and I) with a vital and robust immune system with optimal functioning of the nervous, cardiovascular and digestive systems will generally be able to resist and fight off infections from bacteria and virus. In the developed world, we generally have good practises of hygiene and sanitation infrastructure in place. I commonly hear stories of one or two members of a family coming down with the flu whereas the other family members do not. A credible and reasonable explanation (where all other factors are equal) is that the immune system of the healthy members of the family unaffected by the flu is stronger and more resilient than the flu-ridden members.
Medicine's big breakthroughs came with the discovery of the first antibiotic penicillin in 1928 then the steroid Prednisolone in 1955, used for controlling inflammation. Interestingly, the aspirin we commonly know today to thin the blood came into formal recognition in the late 1890s in the form of acetylsalicylic acid when chemist Felix Hoffmann in Bayer, Germany used it to alleviate his father's rheumatism. Typically, salicylic acid, the main component in modern-day aspirin, can be found in jasmine, beans, peas, clover and certain grasses and willow trees. Hippocrates, our Greek physician friend also wrote that willow leaves and bark relieved pain and fevers. Nature and medicine have therefore been inextricably linked through the ages.
Medicine has had the necessary breakthroughs during the industrial era of growing population sizes where disease prevention and control has been critical for public health and the stability of nation states, their defence and economies. Natural alternative medicines such as Homeopathy have been endorsed by the Royal family, while the media has upon occasion looked to impugn its practitioners as charlatans, quacks or soft-centred woolly thinkers who are dogmatic and unscientific. Alas, the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital established in 1849 and part of the NHS since 1948 was re-named in 2010 and all funding for homeopathy removed by 2018. Why is alternative medicine seen as such a threat to mainstream, drug-based medicine and rejected by policymaker’s on the grounds it is not evidence-based (enough) or not clinically effective. It sounds like a turf war to me. Eliminate the competition in times of austerity and ring fenced budgets.
Traditional v Modern Medicine
A reasonable, balanced, evidence-based (including anecdotal evidence) approach is needed for individuals, communities and society to benefit from the breakthroughs and benefits that orthodox modern medicine and traditional, time tested, natural healthcare both have to offer. There's no point bothering a Coronary specialist with mild stagnation of chi energy in the heart and pericardium meridians (before it's become heart disease) nor appropriate referral for the traditional acupuncturist to manage a patient with acute onset crushing chest pain from angina. An ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure but acute medical care needs to be triaged and implemented when health emergencies strike.
The essential philosophy of Chiropractic can be described as when a person re-connects to a naturally healthy state through the natural mechanism of the body's innate intelligence.
Earthing: Why We Need to Reconnect to the Earth
My health perspective would be to add that we need to reconnect with the earth we stand on. The modern age makes us electron-deficient. Too much positivity from an electrical standpoint is not good. The earth is a near infinite supply of negatively charged electrons, if only we were to take our rubber soled, insulating shoes and socks off once in a while and recharge our electron-deficient batteries. You might say we need both our Vitamin G (from the Ground - disclaimer: this is not actually an established vitamin) and Vitamin D from the Sun!
We need to be negatively charged to counteract the positively charged ions (free radicals and reactive oxygen species) that assault our bodies on a daily basis from pollution, stress, junk food, toxins and EMF.
The disconnect from living in homes insulated from the earth and filled with AC electrical fields in a sea of unseen radio frequencies is a relatively new phenomenon for humans. Our ancestors lived close to the earth, they did not have our modern ailments. They walked barefoot or wore conductive animal skinned shoes in the winter; they slept on animal hides next to the earth - they didn't get diabetes, heart disease or chronic low back pain.
Clint Ober’s book “Earthing” (2014, 2nd Ed) documents how reconnecting and grounding the body consistently produces the following common benefits:
Rapid reduction of inflammation
Rapid reduction or elimination of chronic pain
Dynamic blood flow improvement to better supply the cells and tissues of the body with vital oxygen and nutrition
Reduced stress
Increased energy
Improved Sleep
Accelerated healing from injuries and surgery.
The Earthing Institute website will give you more detailed information.
Find research papers into Earthing here
The Principle of Above-Down-Inside-Out
The biological organism physiologically gravitates towards health when impediments , blocks, disconnects or obstructions are duly removed so that homeostasis can prevail; where vital health is the natural expression of that impulse, not just the absence of symptoms.
The founder of Chiropractic, D.D Palmer's principle of Above-Down, Inside-Out may appear to be very dogmatic and unscientific at first glance. However, in its simplicity it perfectly describes the brain as the control centre of the body, as the Above passing nerve signals to the Below via the central nervous system to the (autonomic) peripheral nervous system.
The control of the body from the brain Above travels as electrical signals passing from neurones (brain cells) which travel Down the spinal cord, along the cranial and spinal nerves and ganglia Inside the entire body; Also the complex chemical production of neurotransmitters and hormones Above in the hypothalamus, pituitary and pineal glands - the connection between the nervous and endocrine systems - circulating Down and Inside via the cardiovascular and circulatory systems.
From Inside the nerve signals and chemistry finally flow to the Outside. The Outside is the external actions that nerve impulses produce like standing the body up, catching a ball, blinking an eye at a fly, sweating on a hot day and running a temperature to burn off a virus.
Moreover, Outside is where the activation of the special senses happens - experiencing the physical world by sight, sound, smell, taste and touch; our internal thoughts and ideas turning into external actions and events; our speech and communication through the voice and body language connecting us to those all around us. There's a lot happening in our world Above-Down-Inside-and-Out.