REASONING TESTS.
The Vermiform Appendix--Operating for Appendicitis--Expelling Power
of the Vermiform Appendix--Care Exercised in Making
Assertions--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 sexes 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 assertion 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 rectum
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 God 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 ASSERTIONS.
We should use much caution in our assertions 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 assert 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 altitude 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 God 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 quantities 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 pass 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 anchored 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 illustrated work of anatomy. You see at once a chance for
constriction of the aorta by the muscles under which it passes, 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 unobstructed 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
analyzed are not normally pure urine. In urinalisis you are told "here
is sugar," "here is fat," "here is iron," "here is pus," "here is
albumen," 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.
As you read his able essay remember there are four other sets of nerves
equal to, and just as important in their divisions of life, which are
the motor, nutrient, voluntary and involuntary. All of which you as an
engineer must know, and by proper adjustment of the body give them
unlimited power to perform their separate and united parts in sustaining
life and health. Now as I have tried to place into your hands a compass,
flag and chain that will lead you from effect to cause of disease in
any part or organ of the whole abdomen I hope that many mysteries which
have hung over your mental horizon will pass away, and give you abiding
truths, placed upon the everlasting rock of cause and effect. You have
as little use for old symptomatology as an Irishman has for a cork when
the bottle is empty. Osteopathy is knowledge, or it is nothing.