I want to offer you the facts, not advice, but pure and well sustained facts, the only witnesses that ever enter the courts of truth. A spinal cord is a fact; you see it--thus a fact. That which you can see, feel, hear, smell or taste is a fact, and the knowledge of the ability of any one fact to accomplish any one thing, how it accomplishes it and for what purpose, is a truth sought for in philosophy. The spinal cord is the present fact for consideration. You see it, you feel it, thus you have two facts with which you can start to obtain a knowledge of the use of this spinal cord. In it you have one common straight cylinder which is filled with an unknown substance, and by an unknown power wisely directed. It is wisely formed, located, and protected. It throws off branches which are wisely located. They have bundles, many and few; they are connected to their support, which is the brain, by a continuous cord in length and form to suit. After it has concluded throwing off branches at local places for special purposes, then like a flashlight, it throws off a bundle of branches called horse-tail plexus, _caudae equinae_, which simply signifies the many branches that convey fluids and influences to the extremities, to execute the vital work for which they are formed and located. While the laws of life and their procedure to execute and accomplish the work designed by nature for them to do, is mysterious and to the finite mind incomprehensible, you can only see what they do or perform, after the work is done and ready for your inspection.
HOW TO TREAT THE SPINAL COLUMN.
Now as we are dealing with the omnipresent nerve principle of animal life, I will tell you this one serious truth, and support it by the fact of observation. To treat the spine, and thereby irritate the spinal cord oftener than once or twice a week will cause the vital a.s.similation to be perverted, and become the death-producing excretor, by producing the abortion of the living molecules of life, before fully matured, while in the cellular system, which lies immediately under the lymphatics.
Your patients will linger long from the change of the nutrient ducts to throw off their dead matter into the excretories, which death was caused by the undue, or too many treatments of the spinal cord. If you will allow yourself to think for a moment, or think at all of the spinal cord being irritated, and what effect it will have on the uterus you will realize that I have told you a truth, and produced an array of facts to stand by that truth. Many of your patients are well six months before they are discharged. They are kept on hands because they are weak, and they are weak, because you keep them so from irritating the spinal cord.
Throw off your goggles and receive the rays of the sunlight which forever stand in the bosom of reason.
MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTER OF ALL.
This is the most important chapter of this book, because at this point the engine of life is turned over to you as an engineer and by you it is expected to be wisely conducted on its journey.
Your responsibility here is doubled. Your first position is that of a master mechanic, who is capable of drawing plans and writing minutely a specification whereby the engineer may know what a well constructed machine is in every particular. He knows the parts and relations of both as constructor and operator, and you are supposed to be the foreman in the shop of repairs. The living person is the engine, nature the engineer, and you the master mechanic.
This being your position it is expected that you will carefully inspect all parts of the engines run into your repair shop, note all variations from the truly normal, and adjust from those variations as nearly as possible to the conditions of the true specimen that stands in the shop.
PERFECT DRAINAGE.
At this point it will be proper to suppose a case by way of ill.u.s.tration. Suppose by some accident the bones of the neck should be thrown at variance from the normal to a bend or twist. We may then expect inharmony in the circulation of the blood to the head and face with all the organs and glands above the neck. We will find imperfect supply of blood and other fluids to the head. We may expect swelling of head and face with local or general misery. Thus you have a cause for headache, dizziness, blindness, enlarged tonsils, sore tongue, loss of sight, hearing, memory, and on through the list of head diseases, all because of perverted circulation of the fluids of the brain proper of any local division. It is important to have perfect drainage, for without it, the good results from a treatment cannot be expected to follow your efforts to relieve diseases above the neck.
WHAT TREATING MEANS.
Here I want to emphasize that the word treat has but one meaning, that is to know you are right, and do your work accordingly. I will only hint, and would feel embarra.s.sed to go any farther than to hint to you, the importance of an undisturbed condition of the five known kinds of nerves, namely: sensation, motion, nutrition, voluntary and involuntary, all of which you must labor to keep in perpetual harmony while treating any disease of the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, spine and limbs.
If you would allow yourself to reason at all, you must know that sensation must be normal and always on guard to give notice by local or general misery, of unnatural acc.u.mulation of the circulating fluids.
Each set of nerves must be free to act and do their part. Your duty as a master mechanic is to know that the engine kept is in so perfect a condition that there will be no functional disturbance to any nerve, vein, or artery that supplies and governs the skin, the fascia, the muscle, the blood or any fluid that should freely circulate to sustain life and renovate the system from deposits that would cause what we call disease.
A NATURAL CURE.
Your Osteopathic knowledge has surely taught you, that with an intimate acquaintance with the nerve and blood supply, you can arrive at a knowledge of the hidden cause of disease, and conduct your treatment to a successful termination. This is not by your knowledge of chemistry, but by the absolute knowledge of what is in man. What is normal, and what abnormal, what is effect and how to find the cause. Do you ever suspect renal or bladder trouble without first receiving knowledge from your patient, that there is soreness and tenderness in the region of the kidneys at some point along the spine. By this knowledge you are invited to explore the spine for the purpose of ascertaining whether it is normal or not. If by your intimate acquaintance and observance of a normal spine you should detect an abnormal form although it be small, you are then admonished to look out for disease of kidneys, bladder or both, from the discovered cause for disturbance of the renal nerves by such displacement, or some slight variation from the normal in the articulation of the spine. If this is not worthy of your attention, your mind is surely too crude to observe those fine beginnings that lead to death. Your skill would be of little use in incipient cases of Bright"s disease of the kidneys. Has not your acquaintance with the human body opened your mind"s eye to observe that in the laboratory of the human body, the most wonderful chemical results are being accomplished every day, minute and hour of your life? Can that laboratory be running in good order and tolerate the forming of a gall or bladder stone? Does not the body generate acids, alkalies, substances and fluids necessary to wash out all impurities? If you think an unerring G.o.d has made all those necessary preparations, why not so a.s.sert, and stand upon that stone?
You cannot do otherwise, and not betray your ignorance to the thinking world. If in the human body you can find the most wonderful chemical laboratory mind can conceive of, why not give more of your time to that subject, that you may obtain a better understanding of its workings?
Can you afford to treat your patients without such qualification? Is it not ignorance of the workings of this Divine law that has given birth to the foundationless nightmare that now prevails to such an alarming extent all over civilization, that a deadly drug will prove its efficacy in warding off disease in a better way than has been prescribed by the intelligent G.o.d, who has formulated and combined life, mind and matter in such a manner that it becomes the connecting link between a world of mind, and that element known as matter? Can a deep philosopher do otherwise than conclude that nature has placed in man all the qualities for his comfort and longevity? Or will he drink that which is deadly, and cast his vote for the crucifixion of knowledge?
CHAPTER XVI.
REASONING TESTS.
The Vermiform Appendix--Operating for Appendicitis--Expelling Power of the Vermiform Appendix--Care Exercised in Making a.s.sertions--Reasoning Tests--A List of Unexplained Diseases--Concluding Remarks.
THE VERMIFORM APPENDIX.
At the present time more than at any other period since the birth of Christ, the medical and surgical world have centralized their minds for the purpose of relieving locally inside, below the kidney of the male or female, excruciating pain, which appears in both s.e.xes in the region above described.
From some cause, possibly justifiable, it has been decided to open the human body and explore the region just below the right kidney in search of the cause of this trouble. Such explorations have been made upon the dead first. Small seeds and other substances have been found in the vermiform appendix, which is a hollow tube over an inch in length. These discoveries, as found in the dead subject, have led to explorations in the same location in the living. In some of the cases, though very few, seeds and other substances have been found in the vermiform appendix, supposed to be the cause of local or general inflammation of the appendix. Some have been successfully removed, and permanent relief followed the operation. These explorations and successes in finding substances in the vermiform appendix, their removal, and successful recovery in some cases, have led to what may properly be termed a hasty system of diagnosis, and it has become very prevalent, and resorted to by the physicians of many schools, under the impression that the vermiform appendix is of no known use, and that the human being is just as well off without it.
OPERATING FOR APPENDICITIS.
Therefore it is resolved, that as nothing positive is known of the trouble in the location above described, it is guessed that it is a disease of the vermiform appendix. Therefore they etherize and dissect down for the purpose of exploring, to ascertain if the guess is right or wrong. In the diagnosis this is a well-defined case of appendicitis; the surgeon"s knife is driven through the quivering flesh in great eagerness in search of the vermiform appendix. The bowels are rolled over and around in search of the appendix. Sometimes some substances are found in it; but often to the chargrin of the exploring physician, it is found to be in a perfectly healthy and natural condition, and so seldom is it found impact with seeds or any substance whatever, that as a general rule it is a useless and dangerous experiment. The per cent of deaths caused by the knife and ether, and the permanently crippled, will justify the a.s.sertion that it would be far better for the human race if they lived and died in ignorance of appendicitis. A few genuine cases might die from that cause; but if the knife were the only known remedy, it were better that one should occasionally die than to continue this system, at least until the world recognizes a relief which is absolutely safe, without the loss of a drop of blood, that has for its foundation and philosophy a fact based upon the longitudinal contractile ability of the appendix itself, which is able to eject by its natural forces any substances that may by an unnatural move be forced into the appendix.[8]
[Footnote 8: My first Osteopathic treatment for appendicitis was in 1877, at which time I operated on a Mr. Surratt and gave permanent relief. During the early eighties I treated and permanently cured Mrs Emily Pickler of Kirksville, mother of our representative, S. M.
Pickler, and mother of ex-congressman John A. Pickler of South Dakota.
The infirmary has had bad cases of appendicitis probably running up into hundreds without failing to relieve and cure a single case. The ability of the appendix to receive and discharge foreign substances is taught in the American School of Osteopathy and is successfully practiced by its diplomates. In the case of Mr. Surratt I found lateral twist of lumbar bones; I adjusted spine, lifted bowels, and he got well. When I was called to Mrs. Pickler she had been put on light diet, by the surgeon, preparatory to the knife. She soon recovered under my treatment without any surgical operation and is alive and well to this date.]
EXPELLING POWER OF THE VERMIFORM APPENDIX.
To a philosopher such questions as this must arise: Has the appendix at its entrance a sphincter muscle similar in action to that of the r.e.c.t.u.m and oesophagus? Has it the power to contract and dilate?--contract and shorten in its length and eject all substances when the nerves are in a normal condition? And where is the nerve that failed to execute the expulsion of any substance that may enter the cavity of the appendix?
Has G.o.d been so forgetful as to leave the appendix in such condition as to receive foreign bodies without preparing it by contraction or otherwise to throw out such substances? If He has He surely forgot part of His work. So reason has concluded for me, and on that line I have proceeded to operate for twenty-five years without pain or misery to the patient, and given permanent relief in all cases that have come to me.
With the former diagnosis of doctors and surgeons that appendicitis was the malady, and the choice of relief was the knife or death, or possibly both, many such cases have come for Osteopathic treatment, and examination has revealed that in every case there has been previous injury to some set of spinal nerves, caused by jars, strains or falls.
Every case of appendicitis, gall or renal stones can be traced to some such cause. These principles I have proclaimed and thought for twenty-five years.
CARE EXERCISED IN MAKING a.s.sERTIONS.
We should use much caution in our a.s.sertions that nature had made its work so complete in animal forms and furnished them with such wisely prepared principles that they could produce and administer remedies to suit, and not leave the body to find them. Should we so conclude and find by experiment that man is so arranged, and wisely furnished by deity as to ferret out disease, purify and keep the temple of life in ease and health; we must use great care when we a.s.sert such is not undeniably true up to the present. The opposite opinion has had full sway for twenty centuries at least, and man has by habit, long usage, and ignorance so adjusted his mind to submit to customs of the great past that should he try, without previous training, to reason and bring his mind to such alt.i.tude of thought of the greatness and wisdom of the infinite, he might become insane or fall back in a stupor, and exist only as a living mental blank in the great ocean of life, where beings dwell without minds to govern their actions. It would be a great calamity to have all the untrained minds shocked so seriously as to cause them to lose the mite of reason they now have, and be sent back once more to dwell in Darwin"s protoplasm. I tell you there is danger, and we must be careful and show the people small stars, and but one at a time, till they can begin to reason and realize that G.o.d has done all that the wisest can attribute to Him.
REASONING TESTS.
There is but one method of reasoning. That method is by the laws governing the subject to be reasoned upon.
Reasoning is the action of the mind while hunting for truths.
THE ABDOMEN.
As we are about to camp close to the abdomen for a season of explorations and a more reasonable knowledge of its organs and their functions, we will search its geography first, and find its location on the body or globe of life. We find a boundary line established by the general surveyor, about the middle of the body, called the diaphragm.
This line has a very strong wall or striated muscle that can and does dilate and contract to suit for breathing, and quant.i.ties of food that may be stored for a time in stomach and bowels for use. The abdomen is much longer than wide. In short, it is a house or shop builded for manufacturing purposes. In it we find the machinery that produces rough blood or chyle, and sends it to heart and lungs to be finished to perfect living blood, to supply and sustain all the organs of this division. This diaphragm or wall has several openings through which blood and nutriment pa.s.s to and from abdomen to heart, lungs and brain.
I want to draw your special attention to the fact that this diaphragm must be truly normal. It must be anch.o.r.ed and held in its true position without any variation, and in order that you shall fully understand what I mean, I will ask you to go with me mentally to all the ribs, beginning with the sternum, see attachments, follow across with a downward course to the attachments of this great muscular septum to the lower lumbar region, where the right crus receives a branch or strong muscle from the left side, and the left crus receives a muscle from the right which becomes one common muscle known as the left crus, the same of the right crus receiving a muscle or tendon from the left, which you will easily comprehend from examining descriptive cuts in Gray, Morris, Gerrish, or any well ill.u.s.trated work of anatomy. You see at once a chance for constriction of the aorta by the muscles under which it pa.s.ses, causing without doubt much of the disease known as palpitation of the heart, which is only a bouncing back of the blood that has been stopped at the crura. Farther away from the spine near the center of the diaphragm we find the return opening through this wall, provided to accommodate the vena cava. To the left a few inches below the vena cava we find another opening provided for the oesophagus and its nerves; like the aorta, it has two muscles of the diaphragm crossing directly between oesophagus and the aorta, in such shape as to be able to produce powerful prohibitory constriction to normal swallowing.
A LIST OF UNEXPLAINED DISEASES.
At this point I will draw your attention to what I consider is the cause of a whole list of hitherto unexplained diseases, which I think are only effects, caused by the blood and other fluids being prohibited from doing normal service by constrictions at the various openings of the diaphragm. Thus prohibition of free action of the thoracic duct would produce congestion of receptaculum chyli, because of not being able to discharge its contents as fast as received. Is it not reasonable to suppose a ligation of the thoracic duct at the diaphragm would retain this chyle until it would be diseased by age and fermentation, and be thrown off into the substances of other organs of the abdomen and set up new growths, such as enlargement of the uterus, ovaries, kidneys, liver, spleen, pancreas, omentum, lymphatics, cellular membranes, and all that is known as flesh and blood below the diaphragm? Have you not reason to explore and demand a deeper and more thorough anatomical knowledge of the diaphragm and its power to produce disease while in an abnormal condition, which can be caused by irritations, wounds or hurts, from the base of the brain to the coccyx? Remember this is an anatomical and philosophical question that will demand your attention to the mechanical formation, physiological action and the un.o.bstructed privileges of fluids when prepared in the laboratory of nature, to be sent at once to their ordained destination, before such substances are diseased or dead with age. You must remember that you have been well drilled, or talked out of patience in the room of symptomatology and all you have learned is, something ails the kidneys, and are told their contents when a.n.a.lyzed are not normally pure urine. In urinalisis you are told "here is sugar," "here is fat," "here is iron," "here is pus," "here is alb.u.men," and this is diabetis, this is Bright"s disease, but no suggestion is handed to the student"s mind to make him know that these numerous variations from normal urine are simply effects, and the diaphragm has caused all the trouble, by first being irritated from hurts, by ribs falling, spinal strains, wounds and on from the coccyx to the base of the brain. Symptomatology is very wide and wise in putting this and that together and giving it names, but fails to give the cause of all these abdominal lesions. Never for once has it said or intimated that the diaphragm is prolapsed by misplaced ribs to which it is attached, or that it is diseased by hurts of spine and nerves above its own location. Allow yourself to think of the universality of the distribution of the superior cervical ganglion and other nerves which are of such great importance that I will by permission insert in the last chapter of this book a description of that great system of the sympathetic nerves by Dr. Wm. Smith, whose superior knowledge of anatomy makes him eminently qualified to describe the location and uses of this great sympathetic system of the nerves of life.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.