How did we in chiropractic come to think of bacteria and viruses in our environment as a non-threatening, friendly, creature of earth? Must have been the 60’s peace generation. Perhaps it is because medical science has historically viewed them as adversaries that needed to be destroyed and in an anti-medical moment we took the opposite view. They, however are, or at least, act like universal forces which tend to be destructive as regards structural (innate) matter. They are not our friends but they are no more our enemies than gravity, the rain or ultrviolet rays, also universal forces. The difference between the ADIO view and the outside-in view is whether to try to destroy them or enable our bodies to adapt to them.
Bacteria and viruses have an innate and a purpose too Joe, but you know that. Their job is to destroy weak tissue, speeding up the cycle of life by breaking down the dis-eased. Bad for the individual, good for the herd.
DD it seems, was not for or against them but he was against vaccines. I think BJ likened them to buzzards, not killers but constantly looking for the dead.
Was it TOM last week that discussed cellular replacement as apposed to “healing”. Since this is the case, those little critters are our friends, our little microscopic janitors. I say we keep the little fellas around, as they give my immune system something to do.
I guess the point I was trying to make did not get through. Having their own i intelligence bacteria care nothing about our body. They are not like the garbage collector who (just came by making me think of this analogy) is working for us. They are more like the homeless guy walking around town picking up aluminum cans and bottles to recycle for himself. He may be doing us a favor by getting recyclables off the streets but he is not intentionally doing it and he is just as likely to throw his trash in the street as he is to pick up a bottle. He is not a “janitor.” He cares nothing about beautifying my town. He is not my “friend.” The medical doctor wants to run him out of town and hire someone to pick up bottles. I say it’s a free country and would rather leave him alone but not because he is indirectly performing a “good” or even necessary function. However. he does have the potential to do more relative “harm” than relative “good.” Bacteria have the potential to do more harm than good for the individual and the ii of my body will do what is necessary to destroy them when and if they do (eg. fever). In that sense they are more like a universal force than part of my body. We are not in a symbiotic relationship with them. In fact, I would suggest that our chiropractic philosophy rejects the concept of symbiosis. We can adapt to and adapt uf for use in our body but my ii (nor my ei for that matter) cares nothing about “mutually benefitting” any uf including the sun, rain, wind or microorganisms.
As long as I’m on my, as Reggie would say, “bloody soapbox” let me address the outside- in view of the environmental movement…on second thought I’m covering that in Conflict of Philosophy, so I’ll let it go for now, besides I’m not backing this up. As always Steve, thanks for making me think.
Joseph, let me stand on your “bloody soapbox” for a moment. It’s so imperative to understand that the solicitude of INNATE INTELLIGENCE OF THE BODY is for THAT particular body, at any specific time and in any specific space. It is a LAW! It is a PRINCIPLE deducted from ONE MAJOR PREMISE! No more, no less. PERIOD!
When was the last time the LAW of gravity communicated with YOU? How could EMC2 communicate with YOU? It’s a bloody PRINCIPLE! And do not misunderstand me. I know BJ had thought flashes, hunches, intuitive feelings and that’s what they were. It could NEVER have come from LAW or PRINCIPLE. Could BJ have gotten those “communications” from another source within himself? Could BJ have been WRONG TO CALL THAT SOURCE INNATE? And it’s OK. No judgment here!
Principle #21 states: “The mission of innate intelligence is to maintain the material of the body in active organization.” Period!
It seems that whatever your instructors told you, whatever your gurus told you, whatever your friends tell you and whatever you even tell yourself about innate intelligence… and if it’s not based on the principles of chiropractic, could it be only conjectures? Chiropractic is first and foremost a philosophy with 33 PRINCIPLES to fall back onto. It is WHAT makes chiropractic distinct and different. It is LAW. Why can WHO ever not get that and abide by it?
Please re-read principles 22 through 27 and show me where it elucidate where “my innate communicates with your innate so it can communicate that back to me”. If a technique is based on innate to innate communication (which is an impossibility — it’s a PRINCIPLE) it is NOT chiropractic. Oh, yes, it may correct vertebral subluxation sometimes, anything does sometimes. It’s not a technique that is congruent chiropractic philosophy. And could it be that because the WHO using that technique is erring on the side of some idea BJ had at some time during the AMAZING developmental and evolutionary process of chiropractic philosophy? Why not using a technique that is congruent with chiropractic philosophy? Would it be less confusing for both, the chiropractor and the public?
Thank you Joseph for allowing me to post my thoughts.
I don’t mean to nit pic here, but we do have a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria in our gut. This is one of the problems with antibiotics, they kill indiscriminately the good as well as the bad bacteria. We also need the environmental scavengers I assume or they would not have been created. Unlike the homeless man, they thrive on garbage. It is their whole reason for existence. We just don’t like it when they overpopulate an area and leave their toxic excrement. So if your question is do we destroy them, no. It is the job of medicine to attempt to change the environment. Do we learn to live with and adapt to them yes, that was my point. Germs are a natural part of our universe. Like your homeless man, good and bad. We just don’t want all the homeless living in our town at once.
First of all Steve, never apologize for nit picking. Thats what philosophy discussion is. Perhaps if our profession had more nit pickers, we would not have so much slipping to check. People say that I am nit picking when I insist on the use of the word adjustment rather than treatment. I recognize the difference and I’m sure you do also. So pick nits all you want :). When I was in chiropractic school, in the middle of the last century (wow, writing that makes me feel old), it was suggested that the alimentary canal was not really inside the body…now that’s nit picking at its best! But your point is well taken. However, we derive benefit from the sun as individuals and the rain (for food). Can we say we have a symbiotic relationship with these, what Stephenson calls UFs? I think the “homeless man” analogy still holds. The homeless man “thrives” on what, until a few yearsago was considered by everyone to be garbage. I think we are in agreement as to how we in chiropractic should view them, ie. “live and let live”, both the germs and the homeless. I said that in both my original post and my last comment. But this diecussion brings up questions we should be able to answer, both philosophically correct from an ADIO viewpoint and one that does not make us look foolish to reasonable people. Here area few questions that we as chiropractors need to have logical answers for (and I’m not suggesting I have those answers or that it needs to be discussed on this thread or at this time):
1. If we have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria, what about parasites and viruses? That’s why I am more comfortable with the concept of microoganisms (acting) as UFs (just my opinion).
2. If we are going to tak a position on “the problems with antibiotics”, then we need, not a chiropractic viewpoint because it has nothing to do with chiropractic, but an ADIO viewpoint on them. They do save lives at times.
3. “Do we learn to live and adapt to” mosquitoes and the parasite that they carry which is an influencing factor in malaria? Apparently, the environmental movement thinks that way for they outlawed DDT which could save hundreds of thousands of lives in tropical countries, mostly infants and children. We have made Rachel Carson a saint for protecting the integrity of a few bird eggshells when she may have been responsible for more deaths than Hitler.
OK Joe, …………If your nittin’, then I’m pickin’. We have no symbiosis with the sun because the sun doesn’t need us.
1.The bacteria in your gut however must have a warm supportive environment to carry out their respective functions. As we also need them for proper digestion. It seems the problem occurs when we have a control or regulation deficit ( loss of innate control) When asked in court, what would you do about head lice, BJ said “I would adjust” ( I guess he was not afraid to look foolish ). His explanation was the body must be abnormal to support lice, a scavenger, therefore needing an adjustment. What I’m saying is a body out of control harbors an abnormal type or amount of micro-organisms. When we are expressing ourselves fully then they are just another part of the universe. They have no solicitude toward us nor us them. When we don’t express fully they are there to do a job, following their own innate directives.
2.The antibiotic example was only to show lack of discrimination (UF), we however maintain a balance of “friendly germs” because of innate control.
3. There has to be a reason they were created, it is obviously beyond our grasp at this juncture in time, so I don’t know what to tell you about that, Joe. ( Bird eggshells over babies sounds lopsided to me, but i gotta wonder. If DDT hurts shells, could it be good for us? ) Otherwise yes I think we basically agree, but you make me think awfully hard some times.
good post!
Agreed!!
On the subject of intestinal flora as partners in symbiosis:
I agree with your comparison of bacteria to universal forces. As far as an individual’s ii is concerned a bacteria is just any other universal matter. Just as our ii will adapt the body within its limits to a lack of certain nutrients, so to it adapts to a lack of intestinal flora. Would the body be better off if it had all the nutrients doing their “job” where they are needed? Of course, and likewise it would be better off if it had the “matter” of the bacteria doing its job where it is needed. In a state of dis-ease this foreign organized matter, having no solicitude for the body it is living in, can over populate and cause harm to it’s host. Likewise, the body in a state of dis-ease can create an environment which rejects or harms this matter, necessitating that the body’s ii adapt it to perform functions it usually does not perform.