All health approaches can be divided into two major categories:
The first is directed toward the treatment of disease, its effects and on occasion, its causes. This approach believes that if disease can be removed, covered up or driven out of the body, health will somehow be the end result. It focuses its attention on diseases and their symptoms and attempts to find just the right treatment for each disease, one that will be effective yet not cause adverse side-effects to the person who, as a result of the disease, is usually in a weakened condition already. This approach to health, of course, is the most expensive, the most time consuming and the most dangerous. It also often presents the most heroic or dramatic results. Medicine and Surgery are the two most well known examples of the disease treatment approach. However, there are dozens more, many of them drugless and more holistic in nature that treat the whole person to alleviate the disease.
The second approach to healing is directed toward restoring well being to the entire body. It views disease as not something that needs to be fought, driven out or removed but merely the absence of health or well being within the body. Much like darkness is nothing more than the absence of light, disease is what remains when health is lost or removed. That is not to imply that the symptoms of disease are not real. The inability to navigate in a dark room is a real problem. By putting in a small 7 1/2 watt night light in the room we solve the problem. There are some legitimate fears in walking down a dark street and that is why we have street lights. Crime is more prevalent in darkness. The important fact is that we do not try to treat the darkness or its symptoms but merely restore light to the void and the problem is resolved.
Chiropractic looks at disease as a manifestation of a lack of health within the body. Various factors will determine what symptoms are manifested and hence, by what name Medicine describes it. But whatever name or whatever symptom, the fact remains that before the disease appears, health has been lost. The individual's body has begun to work at less than its fullest potential. When the body is working without sufficient health for enough time, the symptoms of sickness appear.
The difference in Chiropractic is that it does not focus its attention towards disease, nor toward its symptoms, it removal or its treatment. That is the practice of Medicine. Sometimes it is necessary. Some individuals have had health absent for so long that Medical intervention is required. The uniqueness of Chiropractic is that its for everyone. The individual who needs Medical treatment needs to have health restored as well. The individual who has not yet manifested the symptoms of disease needs to have their health restored. The person who appears to be in perfect health needs to continually supply that health.
Chiropractic restores the integrity of the nerve system. When a vertebra subluxates (misaligns, interfering with nerve impulses), it inhibits the body from functioning perfectly and results in a loss of health. The Chiropractor regularly checks the spine to help a person's body correct these vertebral subluxations as soon as they occur in those people desiring health. This is the uniqueness of Chiropractic. It is a service that no one else performs. It is different from a disease treating approach and it is a necessary component of a health restoring approach.
