There is considerable confusion within the so-called straight chiropractic community over the issue of doing tests that are traditionally of a diagnostic nature and ordinarily performed by a medical doctor. There is no question that there is an historical basis for straight chiropractors doing procedures like taking blood pressure, looking into the eyes and ears and listening to heart sounds. Traditional straight chiropractors justify doing these procedures not only because B.J. did them at the B.J. Palmer Chiropractic Research Clinic in Davenport but because they are part of the straight chiropractic tradition. In other words, they were taught in school and “we have always done them.” Perhaps if we can examine them in light of present day thinking, we can draw some logical conclusions as to their value to the present-day straight chiropractor.
There are three schools of thought regarding the performance and necessity of diagnostic tests. The objective straight chiropractor believes that it does not matter how long we have done it, who did it or why it was done, if it does not help the chiropractor accomplish his objective, it should not be part of his procedure. The objectives are to locate, analyze and correct vertebral subluxations to enable the innate intelligence of the body to be better expressed and to teach the patient the ADIO viewpoint of health and life. Medical tests do not help to achieve the former (subluxation correction). There are no modern-day methods of analysis in which diagnostic tests are helpful. In other words, you cannot determine subluxation by looking into one’s ears (unless there is extreme laterality and superiority of Atlas and you are able to see the transverse process protruding through the eardrum!) To achieve the latter objective (educating the public to an ADIO viewpoint) it is downright counterproductive to do medical procedures. It presents chiropractic and the chiropractor as an alternative or substitute for medical care. Any form of diagnosis or examination procedure that is ordinarily used in coming to a diagnostic conclusion is not consistent with the objective straight chiropractic approach.
The other two schools of thought believes that they should utilize diagnostic procedures to some degree. One is of the chiropractor who wants to treat medical conditions with chiropractic. He may use his hands and/or include therapeutic measures, but to treat a medical condition he must know what that condition is, hence the need for diagnosis. Unquestionably, if you are going to mix chiropractic with any therapeutic procedure, you must perform the minimum requirements which include coming to a diagnostic conclusion.
The third is the most difficult to analyze and explain. This is the traditional chiropractor. He claims he does not treat disease or its symptoms; he corrects vertebral subluxations as the cause of disease. He is cause-oriented rather than effects-oriented. He has accepted the CCE mandate that diagnosis is necessary to the practice of chiropractic, however, he does not diagnose medical conditions, he diagnoses the effects of vertebral subluxation. He will do all the diagnostic tests but not come to a diagnostic conclusion because it is not necessary, he is only going to adjust. This position can be confusing and rather than fail to clearly elucidate their position, perhaps we can get a better understanding by analyzing the reasons they give for doing medical procedures. Here are the reasons I have heard.
It helps us know if the patient is past limitations of matter and needs to be referred. This is unarguably the most logical reason that a traditional straight chiropractor could give for doing diagnostic tests. It meets the CCE’s intent in that it demonstrates responsibility but frankly, it makes no sense. If the traditional chiropractor is not treating a disease but correcting its cause (vertebral subluxation), then there is no need to refer since no one else is qualified to remove that cause. If the chiropractor is going to make a judgment that the patient is in need of medical care in addition to chiropractic care, he is working outside his area of expertise. (He is as unqualified for that as the medical doctor is to make the judgment that a patient does or does not need chiropractic care.) Further, the likelihood is great that he will refer some people to the medical doctor who do not need medical care as well as fail to refer others that do need that care.
But the greatest fallacy of this line of reasoning takes issue with our philosophy. To believe we know when a patient is past limitations of matter is saying we know as much as the innate intelligence of the body. The practice of medicine is based upon determining that limitations of matter have been exceeded and that educated intervention is necessary. That is a fundamental assumption in the practice of medicine. If we make that assumption, we are practicing medicine and denying the limitation of our educated mind. Isn’t it odd that this group puts down educated intelligence as bad but wants to educatedly determine limitations of matter.
It helps the chiropractor determine whether a subluxation is present or not. I have actually heard a very prominent ICA chiropractor say that he uses this as a criteria of whether the individual is subluxated or not. Now I am pretty relaxed on methods of analysis to determine the presence or absence of vertebral subluxation and the ability to tell if you have cleared the patient, but I really can not see that using symptoms or signs does anything to advance the art of chiropractic. Patients without any apparent medical signs or symptoms can be subluxated. Further, if you adjust a patient and their blood pressure, for example, does not become “normal,” what are you going to do, adjust them again? The worst of this is that if the patient’s blood pressure is normal, the chiropractor assumes they are not or are no longer subluxated and discontinues care. There is one more problem with doing medical tests to determine subluxation, and it is philosophical. Our philosophy teaches us that we do not know what is normal for any given patient, only the innate intelligence of the body can determine that.
We can monitor what the innate intelligence of the body is doing in getting the patient well. I do not know about anybody else but quite frankly, I do not challenge the laws of gravity, I do not question the wisdom of God and I do not monitor the innate intelligence of the body. If a patient is breathing, it means their body’s innate intelligence is working and beyond that is really not my business. I do not need to “look over innate’s shoulder” to see if it is working to heal a hemorrhoid or bring down a fever, nor would I want to! That is the body’s business not mine. My job is to do one thing, make sure there are no subluxations that would interfere with the intelligence of the body doing its job. Nothing more, nothing less.
It is time we matured as a profession. If we want to diagnose and treat medical conditions or their cause with or without drugs, then let’s own up to that fact. If we are removing vertebral obstructions to the proper expression of the innate intelligence of the body over the nerve system in every member of the human race, then there is no reason for us to do anything that is associated with medical practice. If a few people want to do research like B.J., then hire medical doctors to do these medical procedures (that way their findings will have validity among the medical community), call your facility a research clinic and do not confuse the public with what is not a part of the chiropractic objective. (By the way, research clinics do not charge patients for care.) Do not pretend that what you are doing is appropriate for every practicing chiropractor. B.J. never inferred what was being done in the Palmer Research Clinic should be done in every chiropractic office. What we have for the world is too important to be confusing it with medicine. v13n3