NEW TREATMENT FOR BLINDNESS

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 54, 26 November 1921, Page 3

NEW TREATMENT FOR BLINDNESS

Lord Grey of Falloden being nearly blind, and having consulted all the most famous occulists in vain, is now under- . going treatment of an entirely new'sort, thanks it is hoped that he may be ' enabled to read -again. The treatment consists of manipulation—a sort of massage—of certain vertebrae in the neck. First practised in America, where it is known as "chiropractic,” the treatment is just beginning to find a vogue in England. It is based on the following theory. AU pain and disease are nervous ■in origin. All the nerves of the body pass through the spinal column on their way 'to the brain, and the origin of nearly every 'rouble is to be found there, and can be eured there. Often, ’in fact usually, without tho suffered being aware of the fact, one of his twenty-six vertebrae is slightly displaced—perhaps by a fall or i twist —not enough to cause him immediate discomfort or pain, but enough *c press upon the chord of nerves within. ...It is such a pressure, according to "chiropractic,” that is the cause of •every disease in any part of the body. If you go to a chiropractic doctor (says "Everyday Science”) with, for instance, a mysterious pain in a toe or finger, he makes you lie on your face, and with expert fingers gently searches for ti misplaced vertebra. Probably he finds a spot which you find slightly tender to his touch. That tenderness (unknown of by you previously) is a sign of the displacement of the bone, and of its pressure on the nerve, which is starting to set up arthritis in the joint at the far end of your body. Manipulative treatment, the chiropractic doctor claims will replace the bone and relieve tho pressure, and the arthritis will disappear then of its own accord, ihe cause being removed. Like all pioneers, the ■professors of "chiropractic” are almost fanatic believers in it, and claims that ''Very disease, even cancer, has its origin Jn a misplaced vertebra, and can be cured simply by manipulation. That claim is almost certainly extravagant; backbone manipulation will not prove a panacea for all ills. But it has effected cures; in certain cases it has effected almost instant euros and improvements so rapid as to seem miraculous, and it deserves thorough expert investigation and study.