There is nothing wrong with creating new words or phrases if they help to better covey a principle, concept or truth. Palmer coined the word Vertebral Subluxation because other terms like misalignment simply did not convey the idea of occlusion of an opening, impingement of a nerve and interference with the transmission of mental impulses. The purpose of language is to clearly convey thought. When words are used that no longer describe a concept we discard them from our vocabulary and make up new ones. In 1895 for example the word “gay” meant an individual who was happy, carefree merry. The era was even called the “gay 90’s”. Today the word has taken on an altogether different meaning and e would confuse people if we described a happy, carefree, merry heterosexual as gay. We need a new or another word to describe the 1895 concept of gay.
Early in the history of the profession, Palmer coined a phrase “straight chiropractic” and its opposite phrase “mixing chiropractic”. A straight chiropractor was one who did not mix medical therapies, medical procedures or medical (outside-in) thinking with chiropractic. It has worked very well for almost a century. Since one’s actions always follow the reality of their thinking except for those individuals who are divorced from reality, there was no problem with the term until relatively recent time. However sometime in the 70’s political/accreditation factors caused some straight chiropractors and straight chiropractic colleges to incorporate a few medical procedure e.g., diagnosis, full body exams and Neurological Orthopedic Tests into their practices and curriculums. They have attempted to justify these procedures as necessary to the practice of straight chiropractic. For some it created confusion in the word straight. Are you a “Sherman straight” or a “Life Straight”? Are you a Palmer Straight or Penn Straight straight (Penn Straight straight??). The survival of the straight (SCASA) colleges and their tenacious adherence to the straight philosophy combined with clearer and clearer presentations of the philosophy has been able to clear up that confusion in the mind of any sincere querying person. At one time a few years back some mistakenly felt, myself included, that we might be better off dropping the word straight. In fact, I wrote an article for this publication to that effect. Fortunately I never published it. We have weathered the confusing period and the term is still the best there is to describe what we do. (Perhaps in 2095 the term “gay” will once again take on its 1895 meaning). For now the term straight chiropractic is the best descriptive phrase for what we do.
Recently a new phrase has been coined and is getting wide-spread usage. The term is “subluxation based chiropractic”. It is a conspiracy among some people in the profession to unite straight chiropractic with not quite straight chiropractic. Whether their motives are honorable or not is not the issue. The issue is that subluxation based chiropractic and straight chiropractic are not one in the same. A straight chiropractor is subluxation based. A subluxation based chiropractor is not necessarily straight. Perhaps as many as 95% of the chiropractic profession corrects subluxations as a basis for their practice. Many do other procedures preparatory to or subsequent to the correction of the subluxation. That is physical mixing. Others are subluxation based, correcting subluxation for the purpose of treating or eliminating disease or its cause. That is a medical objective and that is also mixing. Straight chiropractic does not address disease or its cause. Clearly while 95% are subluxation based, perhaps as may as 955 of that group are not straight.
We must resist the efforts of some to get us under the umbrella of being subluxation based chiropractors. It is a term that confuses rather than clarifies. Whether it has political value is questionable. It is probably a clever device to attract chiropractors from the extreme ends of the philosophical spectrum (mixing and straight) into a coalition. The very fact that so many divergent views in chiropractic can embrace the term makes it worthless as a rallying po9int. If you have 100 chiropractors who agree that chiropractic is subluxation correction and each believes it is 1 of 100 other things also, you have nothing. “Subluxation based” is of no practical value. It has no philosophical value. It has no descriptive value. We have spent the last twenty years describing chiropractors according to their objectives. Suddenly this group wants to describe them by only one of many procedures that they may perform. If it is advantageous for the straight to work with the semi-straights, almost straights and the 47 degrees of not so straight, then let’s do it. But any coalitions should not cause any of the participants to lose their identity. Subluxation based chiropractic does just that. It removes the separate and distinct identity that is straight chiropractic and mixing chiropractic an identity that the public deserves to know, the government deserves to know and I would hope each group want s to maintain. I am not embarrassed to be identified as a straight and I don’t choose to be identified with mixers. With the straight schools joining CCE there is already the danger of straights losing their identity. “Subluxation based chiropractic” increases that danger. It mixes straight and mixing. For that reason alone we should reject the term and its usage. v9n6