One Of the Most Important Discoveries Of How The Body Works

The following may surprise some people. It's a hidden-away fact about the chiropractic profession. The 1918 Influenza Epidemic (Spanish Flu) swept the world. It infected approximately a third of the world's population and killed 50 million people worldwide.

"The Official History of Chiropractic in Texas," by Walter C. Rhodes, DC, states that chiropractic care emerged during the 1918 influenza epidemic. Chiropractic Pandemic Records of 1918 show that more people died under medical care than chiropractic when stricken with the Flu.

In Davenport, Iowa, medical doctors treated 4,953 influenza cases with 274 deaths. At the same time, 150 chiropractors, students and faculty of Palmer School of Chiropractic treated 1,635 patients during the influenza epidemic, with only one death.

Except for Davenport, the rest of the state had 4,735 patients treated with chiropractic care. During the influenza epidemic, there was a loss of six, one out of 789.

Now you might say, wait a minute, what does the Flu have to do with a bad back? The answer: chiropractic is not the treatment of a bad back. A bad back may improve with chiropractic care, but something else is at play. It has to do with the functioning of the nervous system.

The early chiropractors knew well ahead of their time; that the nervous system affects the immune system. Around 1980, I started hearing about a new medical research field named Psychoneuroimmunology. That word is a bit of a mouthful, so let's explain our terminology.

• Psycho means to do with the mind.

• Neuro refers to the nervous system.

• Immunology concerns the immune system.

There is an integration of these three systems and many others in the body. A dance between these systems allows your body to express proper health.

Modern medicine compartmentalizes the human body. When you go to a cardiologist, his only concern is your heart. If you go to ears, nose and throat specialist, that is his area of expertise. While these specialities may have general medical knowledge, please don't ask a specialist about an area outside their field. For instance, you wouldn't seek a gastroenterologist's advice about a spinal problem. Their knowledge is limited in other fields.

We can't break the human body into separate compartments; it is all integrated. The brain and spinal cord, with the multitude of nerve pathways, are your information superhighway, transmitting impulses and chemicals called neurotransmitters. 

Neurotransmitters are substances released at the ends of nerve fibres, triggered by the electrical impulse along a nerve. At the junction with the next nerve fibre––the Synapse––the neurotransmitter causes a firing of the adjacent nerve fibre. 

There are many of these: norepinephrine, acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin, to name a few. Some of these neurotransmitters communicate with the cells of your immune system, while others affect how your mind operates.

While lately there has been controversy over the fact that Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) do not influence depression, there is no doubt that body chemistry affects our moods and emotions. A good example is the menstrual cycle. Premenstrual hormonal changes cause mood swings in many women. Exercise of all kinds stimulates endorphins––another neurotransmitter––called the feel-good chemical. It has a tremendous impact on our minds. 

When the immune system is actively operating, the chemicals are produced by the brain, and the reverse applies. Think of people who are down in the dumps or have had a brain injury due to trauma. The brain, by way of the nervous system, produces toxic chemicals that impact the immune system. People who have suffered an emotional trauma or loss are more susceptible to sickness because it tends to dampen the functioning of the immune system.

So let's get back to the Spanish Flu. We can see how Chiropractic treatment during the Spanish Flu epidemic could have had such a positive impact. If the lines of communication—the nerves—are interfered with at the spinal level, this can influence immune function.

Could chiropractic care have helped Covid patients? The answer is yes; however, few would ever get the opportunity. The government policy of isolation put any health practitioner at risk of losing their license, for trying to help a person in need. Unfortunately, we have lost this side of our humanity.