Part 14 (2/2)

It is reasonable to suppose that the mind that constructed man was fully competent to undertake and complete the being to suit the purpose for which he was designed. After giving him physical perfection in every limb, organ, or part of his body, it is reasonable to suppose, that at that time, he gave him all the mental powers needed for all purposes during the life of his race, and with that perfection in the physical, it is supposable he approached very nearly to intellectual perfection.

He was a mathematician, not by collegiate process, but by native ability. He did not have to take a course in a university to study chemistry, because of the fact that he was a chemist when he was born.

Possibly he could speak or understand all languages spoken by the human tongue, from the powers of his mind, which occupied a pure and healthy physique. In a word he was well made and fully endowed with all the physical and mental forces necessary to the whole journey of his life.

Now a question arises: ”When did he begin to degenerate physically and mentally?” Let us reason some on this line, which seems to be a rather solid foundation, and as history is young itself, and has imperfectly recorded only such events as have transpired during a few centuries, with records imperfectly preserved.

EVIDENCES OF PREHISTORIC MAN.

We see evidences all along the journey of prehistoric man's life, though the being and his bones have been mostly obliterated; we see close to his bony remains the stone axe, the flint-dart. We find acres of ground in many places close to mounds and caves, with countless millions of slivers that have been scaled from flints and formed to suit war purposes; while the many bones that are found in caves, heaps and piles, indicate that many thousands fell in mortal combat then and there.

Possibly they were old in the skilled arts of war at that day. Their great and powerful men, who should have been parents of the coming generations, were slain and destroyed and the conquered became the captives and slaves of the more powerful, with all opportunities for mental development suppressed. Other nations and tribes willingly entered the b.l.o.o.d.y fields of battle, with nothing to report but the death of the best physically formed men, and leaving the propagation of the race or races to be kept up by those who were left behind as unqualified to go into battle, for lack of strength of either body or mind.

This process of destroying the mentally and physically great has been kept up to the limits of our history's record. We have to go to schools about one-half of our time in order to cultivate and stimulate our mental energies sufficiently well, that we may follow the ordinary business pursuits of life.

MENTAL DWARf.a.gE.

Without worrying the patience of the reader any further, we will ask him if it is not reasonable that during all the past thousands of years, that men have fought over their G.o.ds and governments, has it not produced the mental dwarf.a.ge from the causes he has had to face? Our professional men are only imitators of one another. They must spend years in school because of a lack of native ability. This is our condition, and we must make the best we can of it. Most of our learned men, so-called, at the present day, stand upon heaps of mental rubbish.

You seldom see in an editor's columns any evidence of mental greatness.

He clips, quotes and sells his wisdom. He takes up some hobby, religious or scientific. He lauds his own religious views; his scientific ideas he wishes embalmed for the use of future generations.

His law is _the_ law. His medicine is G.o.d's pills, notwithstanding he is the laughing stock of all who know him. I want to be good to them. I expect to be good to them, as they are suffering from the effects of pre-natal causes, thrown upon them by their ancestors for thousands of years. By those causes they have been possibly wounded worse than I have, and I do not expect to spend any time in combats with mental dwarfs; political, religious, or scientific bigots. If I can successfully run my boat over the riffles of time, I shall credit it to good luck, not native ability, for I, too, feel what they should,--the deep plowings of mental dwarf.a.ge, that is the result of killing all the great and good men for ages.

CHAPTER XV.

OSTEOPATHIC TREATMENT.

Five Points--Visceral List--Care in Treating the Spinal Column--Most Important Chapter--Perfect Drainage--A Natural Cure.

FIVE POINTS.

The five points of observation will cover easily the whole body, and we cannot omit any one of them, and successfully examine any disease of the system. Local injuries are, however, an exception to this rule, and even a local hurt often causes general effect. Suppose a fall should jar the lumbar vertebra, and push it at some articulation, front, back, or laterally; say the lumbar, with one or two short ribs turned down against the lumbar nerves with a prolapsed and loosened diaphragm, pressing heavily on the abdominal aorta, vena cava, and thoracic duct; have you not found cause to stop or derange the circulation of blood in arteries, veins, lymphatics and all other organs below diaphragm? Then heart trouble would be the natural result. Fibroid tumors, painful monthlies, constipation, diabetis, dyspepsia or any trouble of the system that could come from bad blood would be natural results, because lymph is too old to be pure when it enters the lungs for purifying. If blood or chyle is kept too long below the diaphragm, it becomes diseased before it reaches the lungs, and after renovation, but little good blood is left. Then the dead matter is separated from blood and blown out at the lungs while in vapor. Thus nutriment is not great enough to keep up normal supply. In this stage the patient is low in flesh and feeble generally, because of trouble with blood and chyle to pa.s.s normally through the diaphragm.

VISCERAL LIST.

The failure of free action of blood produces general debility, congestion, low types of fever, dropsy, constipation, tumefaction and on to the whole list of visceral of diseases.

From this we are called to the pelvis. If the innominate bones are twisted on sacrum or are driven too high or too low, an injury to the sacral system of blood and nerves would be cause equal to congestion, inflammation of womb or bladder-diseases, with a crippled condition of all the spinal nerves. This would be cause enough to produce hysteria, and on to the whole list of diseases to spinal injuries. The Osteopath has great demands for his powers of reason when he considers the relation of diseases generally to the pelvis; and this knowledge he must have before his work can be attended with success.

As I said, five points comprise the fields in which the Osteopath must search. I have given you quite pointedly and at length, hints on spine and sacrum which cover the territory below the diaphragm. In conclusion I will simply refer you to the chest, neck and brain, and say, ”let your search light ever s.h.i.+ne bright on the brain.” On it we must depend for power. About all nerves do run through the neck and branch off to supply both above and below, to do their parts in animal life, to the heart, brain and sum total of man and beast. Search faithfully for cause of diseases in head, neck, chest, spine and pelvis; for all organs, limbs and parts are directly related to and depend on these five localities to which I have just called your attention.

With your knowledge of anatomy, I am sure you can practice and be successful, and should be in all cases over which Osteopathy is supposed to preside.

CARE IN TREATING THE SPINAL CORD.

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