A Valuable Watch, (reprinted; By DD Palmer, 1899)

If you should let your watch fall or by any means get some parts of it displaced or injured so that it does not keep good time, or even refuses to run at all, you would take it to a watch doctor.Suppose that upon examination he should tell you that he would have to cut out one or two cogs or remove a wheel in order to make it run, would you leave it with him?No, not for one minute.You would be likely to say, “I have carried that watch for many years, it has served me faithfully, it has always told me the correct time, and you cannot make me believe that the watch factory put in too many wheels or cogs.”

Why not use good judgment in regard to your mother, wife, or daughter who are much more valuable?You would not let a jeweler cut out any portion of your watch, but how many, when mother, wife or daughter has had a fall or met with some injury, thereby displacing some portion of the anatomy so that she is unable to go as formerly, call in the family physician, whom they have learned to love and respect.He makes a diagnosis and prescribes for her.Day after day he calls, takes the temperature, respiration, and feels the pulse, and finds that her condition is no better.He finally advises you to take her to the repair shop, usually called a hospital.They there decide that an operation must be performed; some parts of her person must be removed, they have done all else they knew and they must do something.You would not trust your watch in the care of one whom your best reason told you would ruin it by the removal of some of its parts, but you will trust a person whom you love far more than the watch to the tender mercies of those who rifle women of their motherhood.You listen to the sophistry of the wise doctor; he is willing to take the responsibility (as far as word go) and assures you that the operation of removing some parts of her body will put her on the road to recovery.You know that God did not put in any useless parts any more than the watch factory put in too many parts in your watch.With dread and fear you finally leave her, although you cannot help but think that the responsibility, the gain or loss, and the pay, all rest upon you and not the doctor.

You cease to use your reason.You not only leave your mother, wife, or daughter in the hands of the despoiler, but you also take your watch to the quack jeweler, who at once removes two cogs or a wheel and returns it to you, saying that he hopes it will now run all right.When you took your watch to the quack it did run, but it failed to keep correct time; now to your chagrin and disgust you find it will not run at all.You arrive at home and find that your mother, wife, or daughter has been returned, pale, emaciated, and weak, but the physician assures you that all she now needs is time and rest.But you are doomed to disappointment for you find that time, like the doctor’s knife, has not improved her condition, but , on the contrary, she is now much more helpless than before you spent her time and your money.

You notify the jeweler of the condition of your watch.He tells you of his apprenticeship, of his experience in the business; that he can take the insides of a watch all out, and did so with yours, and found that it had too many wheels to run well, and that possibly there are too many in there yet; if you will let him have it once more he will call in some of his neighbors of like craft who are skilled in that line.They will hold council over it, examine it with a microscope and see for sure just what the trouble is, and so it comes to pass that you again leave your watch.Your family physician calls upon you and tells you he possibly did not cut out enough of her insides, and advises you to return her to the shop and they will hold consultation and advise with the medical staff and know of a certainty just what and how much should be taken out.You again yield your better judgment to one who you think ought to know better than you; and she is again taken from home and sympathizing friends.

In the meantime you watch is returned, or rather what is left of it.It no longer looks like the watch you once carried with so much pride, when everyone admired it and thought it such a beauty.The case is battered and full of wrinkles and bears no resemblance to its former self; it is ruined and destroyed beyond possibility of repair.Your mother, sister, or daughter, as the case may be is again brought home, or, at least what is left of her; but she bears no resemblance to the woman you once thought so plump and beautiful.She is no longer able to walk or take a step; she is only the shadow of her former figure.Her haggard, care-worn looks speak only too plainly of her dreadful experience.The physician says the operation was a wonderful success.“We have done all we can; give her the best of care while she lasts.

-Reprinted from “The Chiropractor,” 1899 by D.D. Palmer

Things haven’t changed much in 109 years, have they?How often do we hear the same story… “I have to have my gall bladder out”.Just to find out after the fact our friend no longer has control of their bowels.Or that their weight problem is due to an oversized stomach.So a piece is taken out or sewn closed but the weight doesn’t change.Amazingly, the same scenarios were playing out during the 1800’s in Dr. Palmer’s day.I thought science was supposed to be advancing medicine?!

I think it is time we stop treating our bodies like specimens in a science fiction movie.The greatest thinkers of history (Socrates, Hippocrates, Newton, Einstein) all yielded to a higher power, a source of their intelligence, a source of life.Laws and principles stand the test of time.Universal laws, or in my opinion, appropriately named God, do not change.He operates the same today as in any other time in history.Gravity is gravity is gravity.Life is.And the body heals itself.Things we take in or do, in an attempt to heal our body only worsen the dis-ease and interfere with and prolong what the body is already capable of handling.

That is what makes Chiropractic different.We focus on the inside-out approach.We honor what is already at work inside of you and we humble ourself to the greater innate in you.We don’t remove or add, we don’t excite or inhibit, rather we allow the body to function as it determines appropriate.Why wouldn’t we?It has happened for the thousands of years of human existence and has proven the test of time.