In 1921, Henry Winsor, MD, a doctor in Haverford, Pennsylvania, aged the question:
"Chiropractors claim that by adjusting on vertebrae, they can relieve stomach troubles and ulcers; by adjusting another , menstrual cramps; and by adjusting others conditions such as kidney diseases, constipation, heart disease" thyroid condition, and lung disease may resolve-but how?"
Dr. Winsor decided to investigate this "new" science and art of healing--chiropractic.
After graduating from medical school, Dr. Winsor was inspired by chiropractic and osteopathic literature to experiment. He planed to dissect human and animal cadavers to see if there was a relationship between any diseased internal organ discovered on autopsy and the vertebrae associated with the nerves that went to the organ. So he wrote:
"The object of these necropsies (dissections) was to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on one hand, and diseased organs on the other; or whether the two were entirely independent of each other."
The University of Pennsylvania gave Dr. Winsor permission to carry out his experiments. In a series of three studies he dissected a total of 75 human and 22 cat cadavers. The following are Dr. Winsor's results:
"221 structures other than the spine were found diseased. Of these, 212 were observed to belong to the same sympathetic (nerve) segments as the vertebrae in curvature. 9 diseased organs belonged to different sympathetic segments from the vertebrae out of line."
"These figures cannot be expected to exactly coincide...for an organ may receive sympathetic filaments from several spinal segments and several organs may be supplied with sympathetic (nerve) filaments from the same spinal segments. In other words, there was nearly a 100% correlation between minor curvatures of the spine and diseases of the internal organs."
Diseases Examined:
Stomach Diseases: All 9 cases of spinal misalignment in the mid thoracic are (T5-T9) had stomach disease.
Lung Disease: All 26 cases of lung disease had spinal misalignments in the upper thoracic spine.
Liver Disease: All 13 cases of liver disease had misalignments in the mid thoracic (T5-T9)
Spleen: All 11 cases with spleen diseases had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracic.
Kidney: All 17 cases with kidney disease were out of alignment in the lower thoracic.
Prostate and Bladder Disease: All 8 cases with kidney, prostate and bladder disease had the lumber (L2-L3) vertebrae misaligned
Uterus: The 2 cases with uterine conditions had the second lumbar misaligend
Heart Disease: All 20 cases with heart and pericardium conditions had the upper 5 thoracic vertebrae (T1-T5) misaligned.
Gallstones: All 5 cases with gallstone disease had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracic
Pancreas: All 3 cases with pancreas disease had spinal misalignments in the mid thoracic.
Dr. Winsor's results are published in The Medical Times, November 1921, and are found in any medical library
The age of the study quoted is intentional to illustrate that the notion of health in correlation with integrity of the spinal column is as true back then as it is today!
There is an ongoing debate as to whether chiropractic adjustments have any sort of influence over the organs of the body.
The fact is is that the nervous system controls every cell, gland, tissue, and organ in the body. Spinal subluxations(fixations) can interfere with this control leading to sickness and disease, and not just musculoskeletal pain, for which most people seek chiropractic care for.
There is more to chiropractic than just treating neck and back pain. I am just as concerned about what the patient can't feel as what they do feel . My main focus is, of course, to maintain healthy function and movement of the joints and spinal column, but to also have a health lifestyle.
It's never too late to make your health a priority!!
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