cures have been effected in periods varying from two to four years.
Prognosis good as to relief, but poor as to complete recovery.
=Ascites.=--Fair prognosis, depending upon the nature of the portal
obstruction. Cirrhotic ascites does not yield well.
=Asthma.=--Spasmodic bronchial asthma is almost always curable except
in the very aged, but the usual posterior curvature in lower cervicals
and upper dorsals requires time and persistent heavy adjustments for
its correction. The asthmatic paroxysm may be relieved instantaneously,
but will recur at intervals for a long period before the cure is fully
established. The cardiac form of asthma depends upon restoration of
compensation for a leaking valve, and yields by irregularly progressive
diminution.
=Blindness.=--As a condition, without qualifying terms, blindness
offers a bad prognosis. Most cases fail to develop sight under
adjustments. Yet some individual cures in optic atrophy, in detached
retina, and in other conditions, attest the possibility. Cataract
blindness perhaps yields best.
=Bradycardia.=--If symptomatic, yields as does the disease. If primary,
a few adjustments are usually sufficient. In one case the first
adjustment increased to 90 a pulse which had been at 60 for fifteen
years. In twenty-four hours, without further adjustment, the rate had
settled at 69 and there remained.
=Bright’s Disease.=--Prognosis good, but some cases terminate abruptly
with intercurrent disease, such as pneumonia. There is danger until
the albuminuria has ceased and the strength of the patient markedly
improved. Probably the diseased kidney area is simply walled off from
the healthy tissue, which then hypertrophies and takes on the work of
the entire organ, or pair of organs. If too much damage has been done,
the case will terminate fatally in time, even though its progress is
checked by adjustments.
=Bronchitis.=--Acute bronchitis is quickly checked as a rule. Chronic
bronchitis may prove intractable, or may require many months for a
cure. There are exceptional quick cures of the most chronic cases.
=Caked Breast--Mammary Inflammations=.--Rapid and positive cure follows
proper adjustments.
=Cerebral Softening.=--Prognosis bad.
=Cerebrospinal Meningitis.=--Serious always, but no fatalities reported
in adjusted cases. Failure to modify fever and cervical retraction
within two or three hours, and with one to ten adjustments, is alarming.
=Chickenpox.=--Like smallpox and the other exanthemata, chickenpox
should be modified at once by adjustment and all cases should be light,
eruption hastened, and fever quickly broken. Sometimes the rash may be
strongly marked and the disease run its usual course in all particulars
except fever and prostration, being a febrile with absence of all the
consequences of fever.
=Cholangitis.=--Recovers quickly under adjustment.
=Cholecystitis.=--Prognosis excellent.
=Chorea.=--Prognosis excellent in acute and subacute cases, less
favorable in chronic. No figures are available, but many chronic cases
fail to respond at all.
=Cirrhosis of Liver.=--Doubtful. No statistics have been compiled, but
it seems probable that most cases are unmodified by adjustment.
=Congestion of Liver.=--Prognosis good.
=Conjunctivitis.=--Readily curable, unless part of a more general
infection.
=Constipation.=--Prognosis usually good, but some cases which have
paralyzed the intestines with drugs, or in which atony of the
intestinal muscles exists from any cause, are very stubborn. One is
led to believe that any case of chronic constipation would respond to
proper adjustments in time, but sometimes the time is prolonged more
than seems reasonable.
=Coryza.=--Some cases respond instantly, others persist and run their
usual course. Chronic nasal catarrh recovers in favorable climates,
and in unfavorable tends to become permanent, though less severe and
annoying under adjustment.
=Croup.=--Always dangerous, but no fatalities reported under
adjustments, which are powerfully effective. Croup requires constant
attention until all symptoms subside, usually within an hour or two.
=Cystitis.=--Usually curable, but some chronic cases prove intractable
for an unknown reason. There is no way of recognizing the curability of
a case before the attempt.
=Deafness.=--Variable outlook. Deafness due to catarrhal occlusion of
the Eustachian tubes is usually curable. That due to middle ear disease
sometimes yields. That due to nerve disease is possibly--though not
certainly--incurable.
=Diabetes Insipidus.=--Prognosis excellent. Few cases fail of cure, and
no fatalities are reported.
=Diabetes Mellitus.=--Always necessitating grave and careful
consideration, this metabolic disease is marvellously controlled by
Chiropractic adjustment. Probably 90 per cent of all cases are curable,
and only those presenting impossible problems of adjustment, or those
in the very last stages, are hopeless.
=Diarrhoea.=--Prognosis depends largely upon secondary causes.
Adjustments sometimes produce diarrhoea to cleanse the intestinal tract
of waste or poisons. Such a diarrhoea, if instituted by Nature without
aid, does not cease with adjustments until its purpose is accomplished.
Nervous and infective diarrhoeas usually respond well.
=Dilatation of Heart.=--Compensatory hypertrophy and strengthening of
the muscle usually follows adjustment.
=Diphtheria.=--Under adjustment the false membrane tends to exfoliate
and to be coughed out entire within a few hours, with rapid recovery.
In children, watch for possible strangulation from loosened membrane.
Constant bedside attention is imperative until fever and membrane
have disappeared. Convalescence, unless antitoxin has been used, is
very rapid, and physicians watching the clinical course of diphtheria
under adjustment customarily doubt the diagnosis unless culture is
made. Antitoxin modifies the prognosis toward gravity, and in spite of
adjustments persistent sequelae often follow its use.
=Dropsy.=--Cardiac or renal dropsy disappears with improvement in the
diseased organ.
=Dysentery.=--In temperate climates death is extremely unlikely.
Recovery is often quick and easy, but some cases persist. The tropical
amoebic dysentery seems hardest to master and may not improve at all.
=Dyspepsia.=--Prognosis good.
=Endocarditis.=--If primary, recovery is the rule. Occurring in the
course of some other disease, as rheumatic fever, it renders the
prognosis less certain and may terminate fatally. Likely to leave
chronic valve weakness or contraction.
=Enteritis.=--Prognosis generally fair. No figures available.
=Enuresis.=--The majority recover within a few weeks or months, with
occasional exceptions. Failure to get results within a few weeks
suggests a change of adjustment.
=Epilepsy.=--Doubtful. Less than half of all cases recover, and no
case can be pronounced cured until all symptoms have been absent for
a year. Cases with anterior cervicals offer the poorest chance. It
is usually possible to restore consciousness and muscular control
by an adjustment during the grande mal, in the instant between
the tonic and clonic spasms, but such immediate response does
not--unfortunately--always mean that a cure will eventually be effected.
=Epistaxis.=--Nose-bleed usually stops at once following proper
adjustment.
=Erysipelas.=--Cases adjusted early show little spreading of the
eruption with but slight constitutional symptoms. After eruption
is fully developed it is more difficult to keep down the fever and
recovery is slower, but none the less certain unless cardiac or other
grave weakness is present.
=Exophthalmic Goitre.=--Like other forms of goitre this may be reduced,
and with its reduction all other symptoms disappear. Many cures are on
record.
=Friedrich’s Ataxia.=--In hereditary cerebellar ataxia (which is
probably congenital, rather) cures are limited to 40 per cent or
less. History of instrumental delivery, with marked upper cervical
subluxation, argue for the natal origin of the disease and increase the
probability of cure.
=Gallstones.=--Prognosis excellent. The calculi absorb under adjustment
by a reversal of the chemical process by which their deposit was
induced. When small they may pass through the ducts and escape, with
slight pain. Adjustment during the painful passage of a gallstone may
act upon the duct so as to lessen greatly the pain and hasten the
passage.
=Gastralgia.=--Like other gastric neuroses, is easily curable but may
sometimes require correction of a neurotic diathesis, which means time.
=Gastric Ulcer.=--Usually recovers, but occasionally leaves a fibrous
cicatrix which cannot be affected by adjustment and which, if located
at the pylorus, may produce stenosis, with consequent incurable
dilatation of the stomach. Operation is required for such a condition,
but the diagnosis is difficult, and it may be best to test with
adjustments for some time.
=Gastritis.=--Prognosis good. To prevent recurrence adjustments should
continue after symptoms subside.
=Goitre.=--Prognosis good. One large goitre under the author’s
observation was reduced in one week so that the neck measurement
decreased one inch. Most cases require several months for complete
reduction.
=Gonorrhoeal Rheumatism.=--More stubborn than other forms of rheumatism
and sometimes defies adjustment. No percentages are available. It
is probable that nothing but a general cleansing of the system will
prevent recurrence.
=Hay Fever.=--Perhaps one-half of all adjusted cases recover fully,
some at once and some after several months. By recovery is meant
failure of the annual appearance of the attack with no symptoms at
any time. No case can be pronounced cured in less than a year. The
remaining half are modified little or not at all.
=Headache.=--Nervous, bilious, ocular, and reflex headaches yield
well. Toxic headaches, or those accompanying systemic infections, give
way slowly with the cleansing of the system.
=Hemorrhoids.=--Excellent, except when lower lumbars are anterior and
defy adjustment.
=Hernia.=--In all sites and forms of hernia, excepting strangulated
hernia, prognosis is good. Strangulation requires immediate surgical
interference. Prognosis is better if a truss be used.
=Hodgkins’ Disease.=--Prognosis theoretically good, but the few cases
under adjustment, while benefited, seem to have died of intercurrent
disease, so that it is well to suspend judgment.
=Hydrocele.=--Theoretically hydrocele should respond well, but in
practice the author has seen several failures, and no cures.
=Hydrocephalus.=--If due to cervical twisting at birth, the prognosis
is fair; otherwise bad.
=Hypertrophy.=--Adaptative hypertrophies, those due to overstrain upon
an organ, do not and should not disappear until the strain has been
relieved. Hypertrophy is sometimes accelerated by adjustment, as in the
case of defective heart valves, when thickening of the wall restores
and maintains compensation. Other hypertrophies tend to disappear under
adjustment.
=Hysteria.=--Good, but slow. Some extreme cases refuse to respond.
Instant recovery from hysterical coma is the rule following adjustment,
but the coma tends to recur.
=Immunity.=--There is no doubt that adjustments often confer immunity
from infection and contagion, but it is so difficult to strengthen
every part of the body against every possible infection or contagion,
and so uncertain that immunity really exists in a given case, that
it is best always to assume the possibility of contagion and act
accordingly. Adjustments following exposure to known contagion are
always wise, but one may never know, if they succeed, that the patient
might not have escaped without them.
=Impotence.=--Variable outlook, according to secondary causes and
pathology. Previous venereal disease renders the prognosis most
doubtful. Nervous or vascular impotence is likely to respond well.
If due to cord disease, the prognosis is to be made on the original
disease.
=Influenza.=--Mortality not more than 2 per cent, and that in the
very aged and infirm. Duration varies greatly. May yield at once,
first adjustment being followed by disappearance of fever, profuse
perspiration, and completed convalescence in from twenty-four to
forty-eight hours; or may require several adjustments at frequent
intervals to break fever.
=Insanity.=--No accurate tabulation of results in different forms of
insanity has been made. Numerous successes, interspersed with fewer
failures, have been reported. The author has both succeeded and failed
with acute dementia, but the failure was a twenty-four-hour trial only,
and included but three adjustments.
=Intestinal Obstruction.=--The prognosis of intestinal obstruction from
intussusception or strangulated hernia is, under Chiropractic, bad.
Such cases are almost surely fatal unless operated. Faecal obstructions
or masses of worms, also volvulus, respond quickly and prognosis is
good. Careful diagnosis is required before taking a case of apparent
complete obstruction.
=Irritable Heart.=--If purely nervous, recovery is quick and easy. If
there is a drug diathesis or organic disease, slow and doubtful.
=Jaundice.=--Yields readily, but if of the obstructive form the
obstruction must first be reduced or removed by adjustments.
=Laryngitis.=--A few adjustments suffice for simple acute cases.
Specific laryngeal infections are more difficult. Laryngitis with
ulceration, which is either syphilitic or tubercular, may not recover
or may recover after a protracted struggle. Chronic laryngitis of other
forms is curable, but requires more time than acute.
=Leucorrhoea.=--Fair prognosis only.
=Lumbago.=--Good, unless pain prevents proper adjustment. True lumbago
is quick to respond.
=Malaria.=--Tenacity varies according to climatic conditions. Malarial
cachexia always yields slowly, sometimes defies adjustment altogether.
No reports are to be had on pernicious malaria. Other forms recover
though paroxysms tend to recur several times before checked, but of
shorter duration than if no adjustment is given.
=Mastoiditis.=--Good results in the few cases observed.
=Measles.=--Excellent. Recovers quickly. Eruption hastened by early
adjustment, runs very mild course with little or no fever, catarrhal
symptoms disappear early. No sequelae.
=Meniere’s Disease.=--Labyrinthine disease of this character has been
cured, without reported failures, but data is meagre, not more than
three or four cases having come under the author’s notice.
=Menorrhagia--Metrorrhagia=.--Results excellent, and usually quick. One
fifty-two-hour intermenstrual hemorrhage from uterus was stopped in one
hour by adjustment, with no recurrence.
=Migraine.=--Migraine, or hemicrania, gives a fair prognosis only. Most
cases require a long course of adjustments.
=Movable Kidney.=--Prognosis good, but change of position and complete
fixation slow. No treatment required--merely adjustment.
=Myelitis.=--Transverse myelitis, if adjusted in the acute stage, may
be checked as any other inflammation, and the damage and resulting
paralysis will be greatly lessened or altogether prevented. The
paralyses which follow myelitis require time for the rebuilding of the
degenerated axons whose course is interrupted at the diseased area, but
tend to recover.
=Myocarditis.=--Reports conflict. It is well to consider this a grave
condition and one open to investigation.
=Myxoedema.=--Only one case known to have been under adjustment, and
this after several years was markedly improved, but not yet quite cured.
=Nephritis.=--Prognosis good. Acute cases show rapid, chronic cases
slow, improvement.
=Neuralgia.=--Prognosis excellent in any form. Trophic neuralgias,
such as herpes zoster, are slowest as a rule, but occasional cases of
tic doloureux will require several months. One may always expect a
cure unless the patient, in long cases, becomes discouraged and stops
adjustments.
=Neurasthenia.=--Good, but will be slow unless mental aid be given in
the form of freedom from worry or strain.
=Neuritis.=--Good, but very uncertain as to time; some cases show quick
disappearance of all pain and some drag interminably.
=Optic Atrophy.=--Complete atrophy with total blindness is rarely
cured, though occasional partial or complete cures have been reported.
Partial atrophy may slowly recover, or recovery may cease at some point
short of completion and case remain stationary thereafter.
=Ovaritis.=--Good, except in suppurative forms. When adhesions have
been formed, results are doubtful.
=Pancreatitis.=--Obscure, hard to recognize, and hard to cure.
Prognosis probably bad.
=Paralysis Agitans.=--Probably in the earliest stages this is curable.
Cure of a fully developed case is exceedingly doubtful and the writer
has yet to see marked benefit in such a case.
=Paralyses.=--Prognosis decidedly variable. Apoplectic hemorrhage
recovers in about 50 per cent of all cases. Paralyses from central
lesions require much more time than peripheral palsies because of the
necessity for rebuilding degenerated nerve cells as well as fibres. The
paralyses following anterior poliomyelitis are almost certain to be
cured if sufficient time is allowed. Most peripheral palsies, except in
the very aged, are curable. Any other paralysis but a purely functional
one recovers slowly, but this form may yield almost in a day.
=Parotitis.=--Mumps respond immediately and may be checked at any stage.
=Pericarditis.=--Usually recovers. Effusions are stubborn and may
become purulent, in which case the prognosis is grave.
=Peritonitis.=--Prognosis grave, but some cases have been reported
as cured under adjustment. These are probably localized rather than
diffuse inflammations, usually pelvic.
=Pertussis, or Whooping-Cough.=--Tends to run its course despite
adjustments, though some aborted cases are reported. All cases mild
under adjustment, with small liability of complications. A nervous
cough is likely to persist for months after the infection has passed.
Adjustments seem seldom to prevent contagion.
=Pharyngitis.=--Acute form yields readily. Chronic pharyngitis is more
stubborn, but usually curable.
=Pleurisy.=--Pleurisy, unless purulent or tubercular, yields well in
varying periods. Purulent and tubercular pleurisy are stubborn and may
not recover.
=Pneumonia.=--The author has had a wide and gratifying experience
with pneumonia. At every stage it seems amenable to adjustment, and
the usual effect of the first adjustment is a drop of from one to two
degrees in the temperature with immediate softening of the consolidated
area. Specific adjustments get best and quickest results. Pneumonia
should =always= recover, unless it occurs as an intercurrent event in
some chronic and wasting disease, as Bright’s Disease.
=Potts’ Disease.=--Tubercular caries of the bodies of the vertebrae
is curable, within limits. Occasional cases are seen in which Nature
has stopped the spread of the disease by walling off the morbid area
with exostosis. Such cases should not be adjusted, and the disease may
remain latent through a long life. When active the disease proves fatal
unless checked, which is possible in the earlier stages, and becomes
impossible when the vertebral bodies are too fragile to stand strong
adjustments. Discernment in case-taking will avoid any fatalities under
adjustment, but by no means all cases of Potts’ Disease are curable.
=Pregnancy.=--We may correct by adjustment any pathological conditions
arising during pregnancy which would be amenable to adjustment under
other conditions. A course of adjustments during a normal pregnancy
will render delivery easier and lessen, but not abolish, the pains.
Great care must be exercised in the manner of adjustment.
=Prostatic Enlargement.=--Varies according to age and recuperative
power. Prognosis is bad in the very aged and infirm, but in more
vigorous subjects quite good for steady reduction of the hypertrophied
gland, with subsidence of attendant symptoms. Venereal history is
unfavorable.
=Pulmonary Tuberculosis.=--In the early stages, where little damage
has been done to lung tissue, recovery is rapid and quite certain. In
fully developed cases, with characteristic symptoms and marked damage
to tissue, prognosis is very grave, and it is usually wisest to advise
a trip to the Southwest in preference to adjustments. Tubercular cases
should be studied with a view to estimating the exact condition and
recuperative power of the patient before taking.
=Rachitis.=--Prognosis excellent. In a period varying from six months
in the best to five to seven years in the slowest cases, all show
complete or nearly complete cures. All deformity may be checked in
a short time and proper bone nourishment established. Correction of
deformities existing prior to adjustment is a growth process. Too
many cases become discouraged at the slowness of the work and stop
adjustments.
=Retinal Hemorrhage.=--Prognosis fair. Undoubted cures have been
recorded, as well as a few failures. At least one case of hemorrhages
followed by partially detached retina has been cured, or nearly so, by
adjustments.
=Rheumatic Fever.=--Hard to adjust because of its painful nature.
Results of proper adjustment usually, but not always, good.
=Rheumatism.=--Muscular rheumatism yields more rapidly than articular.
Acute tends to quick recovery, chronic to more or less lengthened
and slow improvement. Rheumatic diathesis may require many months of
careful adjustment.
=Rubella.=--Simply and easily checked. Rash slight, and no prostration
at all.
=Scarlet Fever.=--Data on quarantinable cases is meagre, but scarlet
fever, or scarlatina, seems to be quickly modified by adjustment. One
may expect a drop of from one to two degrees in temperature after first
adjustment, followed by steady rise, which will again be checked by the
next adjustment. Rash appears early, and all symptoms are mild, but
several days are often required to put the patient at ease. Occasional
sequelae, such as endocarditis, otitis media, or other inflammations,
occur unless case be watched with great care. No fatal terminations
under adjustment except in cases which were at first misdiagnosed.
=Seminal Emissions.=--Prognosis excellent in cases uncomplicated by
masturbation or excessive venery; in such cases bad until habits are
changed.
=Simple Continued Fever.=--Always recovers. Usually drops one to two
degrees shortly following correct adjustment, with amelioration of all
symptoms.
=Smallpox.=--Infections vary in virulence. In temperate climates all
phases are hastened by adjustment and tend to recover without sequelae.
The milder smallpox due to infection by vaccination is also amenable to
adjustment, and prompt handling will often prevent serious poisoning.
=Splanchnoptosis.=--Partial or marked relief is usual--and slow.
Complete natural replacement of all viscera is the exception rather
than the rule.
=Splenic Enlargement.=--Variable prognosis according to cause.
Secondary enlargements due to systematic infection yield with the
disappearance of the infection. Primary enlargements yield more readily
as a rule, with exceptions. Malarial spleen is slow to reduce.
=Splenitis.=--Prognosis presumably good, but few authentic cases
reported.
=Spondylitis Deformans.=--Prognosis favorable for slow, slight
improvement, but not for complete cure.
=Strabismus.=--Excellent in young subjects, less than fair in patients
over thirty.
=Sunstroke.=--Theoretically curable, but no experience.