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Trauma singular, traumata plural, an injury or wound. Traumatic of, or pertaining to, or due to a wound or injury. Traumatism, the morbid condition of the system due to a trauma. Trauma a noun, the name of a condition, the injury or wound which is the cause of a diseased condition. Traumatic, an adjective, pertaining to a wound, or that which is caused by a wound, e.g., t. abscess, t. amputation, t. appendicitis, t. cataract, t. dislocation, t. fever, t. hemorrhage, t. inflammation, t. suggestion, t. lesion, t. disease, t. medicine and t. back. Traumatology, a treatise on wounds, the science of injuries, a description of wounds and the disabilities arising therefrom. Diseases which are caused by displaced osseous tissue or wounds are said to be traumatic or lesional. E. H. Laughlin in his “Quiz on the Practice of Osteopathy” makes frequent use of the word lesional in place of its synonym cause. Toxin or toxine, means poison. Toxic is poisonous. Toxicology is the science (the knowledge) of poisons. A toxicologist is one versed in poisons, one who knows the changes likely to be produced in functions by the use of drugs. A poison is an animal, vegetable or mineral substance which, when introduced into the system as ingesta, by injection, inhalation, or external application, causes such changes in functions as to produce disease or death. A chiropractor does with his hands just what an M.D. aims to do with drugs. An osteo aims to do with his hands that which an M.D. does with medicine. Do not forget for one moment that all organic functions are the characteristic work of organs or an organism directed by an intelligence known as spirit. This intellectual being transmits its impulses, its commands, over the nervous system by molecular vibration. Poisons are irritative, cause inflammation, excessive nerve vibration, or they may be sedative or narcotic, produce stupor, reduce vital power, produce slower vibration. Modification of functions are known as disease. Medical men divide poisons into two classes, organic and inorganic. The former includes those poisons supposed to be developed within the body and cause disease. The latter includes deleterious substances from minerals, plants and snake venom. Toxine in biology, as understood by medical men, is a poisonous substance produced by microorganisms. Of these, two kinds are recognized, animal toxine excreted by certain animal cells, and the poison produced by bacteria. All nerve irritants are traumatic, lesional or of toxic origin; cause abnormal functionating, pathological action. Toxicosis is a disease caused by poison, an abnormal condition of the nervous system. A toxicide is a remedy, an antidote, an agent, used
to destroy the effects of another poison, not as a chemical antidote, but
because of its opposite effect on nerves.
Within certain limits of intensity heat is essential to the development of all organized beings; above a certain degree, it is destructive to all organization and life. At birth the temperature of the infant is slightly above that of the mother. During childhood the temperature gradually approximates that of the adult. Heat production and heat regulation, maintaining the same constant bodily temperature regardless of the surrounding degree of cold or heat below or above that of the body, has been and is, a problem to the medical profession. Inflammation and fever, pathological heat conditions, do not offer to the germ theorist any solution of this perplexed question. Howel’s Text-Book of Physiology says: “Anesthetics and narcotics such as ether, chloroform, cocain, chloral, phenol and alcohol, may be applied locally to a nerve and the conductivity and irritability lessened or suspended entirely at that point, and restored when the narcotic is removed.” Poisons affect nerves, not blood. The following biological principles which go to make up chiropractic science should be known and made use of by practitioners. Nerve fibers possess the property of conducting impulses outward and inward. The amount of impulsive force is determined by the rate of transmission, the rate of that action upon the quantity of vibration and the amount of that movement upon tension. Physiological and pathological activity between peripheral end-organs and their central connection is dependent upon nerve tension. The specific energy of a nerve is due to its anatomical structure, its elasticity and tension. A nerve pressed upon by a fractured or luxated bone would be stretched were it not for the responsive principle of life which resists pressure. The impulsive force normally conveyed by the nerve is modified by the elastic resistance known as renitency. The result is either too much or not enough functionating, conditions known as disease. The contraction and expansion of the nervous system has a normal limit known as tone, the basis upon which I founded the science of chiropractic. Any deviation therefrom is recognized as disease. Tone denotes normal temperature, normal structure, normal tension and normal vibration of nerves. An angle worm, when relaxed, may measure six inches. Press against it, impinge upon it, try to stretch it, and immediately a response of increased tension is observed; it contracts lengthwise and its diameter is increased. This ability of elastic resistance to any opposing force is an inherent quality of all living matter. Dead material does not possess it. An impingement upon a nerve calls into action two opposing forces. The impinging body tends to stretch the nerve, while the inherent principle of self-preservation exerts an activity toward contracting it. Reflex action is the bounding back of an impulse; the conveyance of an impression from the central nervous system and its transmission back to the periphery through a motor nerve. The amount of function depends upon the renitency, the impulsive force obtained by the bounding back. Traumatism, as the cause of disease, increasing or decreasing functionating, is direct by displacing osseous tissue. Auto-suggestion and poisons, as causes, are indirect. They draw vertebrae out of alignment by the contraction of nerves and muscles. Insanity may be caused by auto-suggestion, continued thinking upon one subject without rest. In such cases the third cervical nerves will be found affected. Correct by adjusting the third cervical vertebra. Whether or not a given substance should be included under the term drug depends upon the purpose for which it is sold (as regards the seller) or used (as regards the purchaser). Any substance or preparation used in treating disease is a drug. Medicine as defined by the medical profession includes any drug or remedy used in the treatment of disease. A remedy is defined as that which cures, paliates or prevents disease. In its broadest sense it is defined as the art or science of healing diseases, more especially the administration of internal remedies. Thusly defined, a drug refers to the solid or liquid used in the treatment of disease, while that of medicine includes the drug or remedy used, also, the study and ability to treat disease. Medicine is divided into internal and external, the former refers to the treatment of organic diseases, abnormal functions and abnormal tissue, while the latter refers to surgery, the treatment of external diseases. In 1908 James Gillman, a rancher on Mount Hamilton, Cal., who had been insane for several years, was bitten by a rattlesnake on the hand. The hand became swollen and showed the usual symptoms of snake bite. A few hours later the effects of the venom was no longer visible, and Gillman was restored to saneness, his mind became as clear and active as it ever had been. The poisonous venom had acted as an antidote, its contractile quality upon the nervous system had drawn the displaced vertebra, which caused his insanity, into alignment, accomplishing just what the chiropractor would have done by hand. Bacteria, microbes, or microorganisms are microscopical vegetation, or those minute animals visible only with the aid of the microscope which live and develop in fluids or on moist surfaces and multiply with great rapidity. They subsist on dead organic material, are parasitical scavengers. Mould, a fungus, grows on decaying vegetable matter, such as bread, cheese, gum and ink. Lippincott’s Medical Dictionary says of the two latter, “Destroying their valuable properties.” As much might be as wrongfully said of the mould on bread, cheese and stagnant pools of water. The fact is that putrifying animal matter invites living scavengers, whether buzzards or microbes; while decaying vegetables and motionless water make suitable conditions for the growth and multiplication of vegetable life. Autosuggestion is suggesting to one’s self. Nerves are the means, the channels of communication of one’s own thoughts and very often those of another. That other may be in the physical, near or far distant, or an astral being existing as a spiritual intelligence. Nerves need mental and physical rest. All functions, every act of the body, voluntary and involuntary, are directed by and through impulses (thoughts) passed over the nerves, the means of communication. |