Do You Hear The Trumpet Calling? Part 2

By Sid E. Williams, B.S., D.C.

[Editor’s Note: This column is excerpted from a speech delivered during Life University’s Homecoming, October 5, 2001.]

As British politician and author Edmund Burke wrote, more than two centuries ago, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

The American tragedy of terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, has brought unimaginable suffering to our doorsteps. But hundreds of millions of people throughout the world still are ignorant of the benefits of chiropractic.

They continue naively to put their trust in the poisonous pills and dangerous invasive techniques of so-called "modern medicine," thereby sabotaging their body’s defense system, and they spend their life’s savings while making themselves sicker and sicker until they die. There are over 100,000 people who die yearly from taking incorrectly prescribed drugs!

There is a time for the skills of the surgeon, and I’m sure that many lives were saved by timely medical treatment at the disaster sites in New York and Washington, D.C. Just as we chiropractors heard the call and responded, many medical personnel sacrificed and even risked their own lives to bring comfort to the injured, and I commend them.

When bones are broken, when tissues are torn, when organs are dislodged or when skin is burned, the hand of a skilled surgeon is necessary and is a godsend. I applaud all brave men and women of all professions, from all walks of life, who have sacrificed their own comfort to give solace to others in need. They are our heroes and we salute them!

Yet, we know that people, in ordinary times, totally rely upon the profit-driven procedures of allopathic, orthodox medicine. Indeed, often they are found "lying on cots of disease and death," of their own making, and they remain there because you and I have not done a good enough job of educating the public, the schools, the industries and the politicians.

We need to be educating people, and it is so much better now than it used to be. More people are advocates of chiropractic, but there are not enough. We need total freedom to enter into disaster areas and into communities to help sick people, who must have total awareness and understanding of what we do.

Nothing can compete with a scientific chiropractic adjustment at the right time in the right place! Nothing can compete with it! It is time now! If it is not us, who would do it?

Battling Public Health Threats
In America, we have been safe and protected so long that we have come to take it as a birthright. Think of all of the lethal drugs and venomous poisons already in this country. On any day, plagues may be activated. Horrific things are possible and can happen anywhere, and the whole psychological climate of our country has changed.

Even though the image of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers is like a horrible nightmare, the attack on September 11 may be just the first skirmish in the terrorists’ evil war against freedom. What will be the next weapon used? Poisoning the waters? Car bombs? Germs? Chemicals? Nuclear devices?

America is a giant country with thousands of miles of open borders and coastlines. We cannot keep evil from entering. We cannot control all the evil that’s already here. We cannot afford to be napping. While we hope and pray for the best, we must work and prepare for the worst.

During the flu epidemic of 1918 that killed more Americans than all of our previous wars, chiropractic was given a huge boost in popularity, because it is popular knowledge that chiropractic patients, with their stronger immune systems, were better able to resist the flu bug than their less healthy neighbors. And those under chiropractic care who did get the flu proved to be better able to recover than were those who relied upon allopathic care.

This was not anything new.
D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, once said, "One question that was always uppermost in my mind in my search for the cause of disease was why one person was ailing and his associate, eating at the same table and working in the same shop at the same bench, was not. Why? What difference was there in the two persons that caused one to have pneumonia, catarrh, typhoid or rheumatism, while his partner, similarly situated, escaped? Why?"

That question is still asked now. Why? Why are we continuing to have these diseases? Why are 100,000 people dying of medications, attempting to cure diseases that adjustments would prevent? What difference is there in two persons to cause one person to have a different condition?

This question, which concerned thousands for centuries, was answered on the momentous occasion when D.D. first adjusted Harvey Lillard in September 1895. A janitor of modest means, Lillard had been so deaf for 17 years that he could not hear the racket of the wagons passing on the street just outside his window. Making inquiry into his deafness, Palmer was told that years earlier, while working in a cramped, stooped position, Lillard felt something give way in his back, and immediately he became deaf.

Upon examination, D.D. Palmer found a vertebra shifted from its normal position, and he reasoned that if he could adjust this vertebra, Lillard’s hearing might be restored. What followed is well known, and it began the science and art of chiropractic.
D.D. explained, "This was nothing accidental. It was accomplished with an objective in mind, and the result expected was obtained. There was nothing crude about this adjustment. It was specific."

If this day and this procedure, in the last years of the 19th century, had not occurred, it is arguable that chiropractic, as we know it today, might never have been discovered. D.D. Palmer knowingly moved the vertebral segment, not with crude manipulation, but with a specific directional force applied to correct the vertebra’s abnormal position.

Shortly after his experience with Lillard, Palmer had another case of a person suffering from heart ailments. Once again, Palmer found a vertebra out of alignment and adjusted it. Surprising to him, there was immediate relief. He began to realize that there was a relationship between these varied infirmities, and he postulated that these two separate problems, so different in their symptoms, were both the result of interference to the spinal cord, or a spinal nerve.

Neither condition was the result of some foreign, external cause, such as tiny bacteria, but rather from an internal interference with normal physiology that prevents the body from expressing a state of health and homeostasis.

Thus, the philosophy of chiropractic was founded, correlating the findings of the spinal misalignment to the nervous system’s abnormal control and function. The investigation of the science of chiropractic began. The art of specific vertebral chiropractic adjustment evolved and continues to be progressively refined, even today.

Better Serving Mankind
What we, as chiropractors, need to keep in mind is this: In any future epidemics, whether spread deliberately by a terrorist or indiscriminately by nature, people who have a healthy, well-adjusted spine that supports a fully functioning nervous system and a strong immune system will fare much better than those poor, wretched, misguided souls who put their faith in pills, powders, notions, potions and prescriptions.

No matter what disease you might be exposed to, the healthier you are when you encounter it, the more likely you are to live through it. This is just plain and simple fact, and it’s something you ought to be telling patients and non-patients alike. I hope, pray and trust it will never happen, but if we ever do have an attack of doomsday magnitude in this country, I am convinced that chiropractic-adjusted, healthy people will be the ones left behind to bury those who were not prepared to deal with such a hostile environment.

Ours is a unique and blessed gift of health that we share with our fellow human beings, through the adjustment. The body automatically begins to be a more effective self-healing organism. We just give the correct adjustment, and that’s all there is to it!
We need the skill to point out what people need, do our work and then say, with love, compassion and sincerity, "You look better. You will be better tomorrow."

In these trying times, people will do well to remember the old saying, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." It is at times like this that the true value of chiropractic philosophy emerges. There’s a loving, serving and giving mindset that saturates our entire profession and, as with those brave firemen and emergency workers in New York, it binds us together in times of trouble when duty calls.

B.J. Palmer, the "Developer of Chiropractic," said, "Time always has, and always will, perpetuate those methods which better serve mankind. Chiropractic is no exception to that rule."

He said, "Our illustrious father placed this chiropractic trust in our keeping, to keep it pure and not sullied or defamed. We pass it on to you unstained, unsullied, unmixed. We pass it on to you to protect you and all of humanity. As he passed on, so will we. We admonish you to keep this principle and practice unadulterated and unmixed. Humanity needed then what he gave us. You need what we now give you. Out there in those great open spaces are multitudes seeking what you possess."

B.J.’s last printed words continued: "The burdens are heavy; the responsibilities are many; obligations are providential. But the satisfaction of traveling the populated highways and byways, relieving suffering, prolonging lives and adding millions of years to lives of millions of suffering people, will bring forth satisfactions and glories with greater blessings than you think. Time is of the essence.

"May God flow from above down his bounteous strengths, courage and understanding to carry on; and may your Innate receive and act on that free flow of Wisdom from above down, from inside out. You have in our possession a sacred trust. Guard it well."
How prophetic these words are! We have continued to stand by, year after year, as hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed by orthodox medicine’s carelessness, ignorance and greed. It’s not natural. It’s not normal. That’s not addressing the cause of the problem. The cause of 95 percent of the problems, according to B.J., is subluxations — nerve interference. That’s our field.

Seizing An Opportunity
Now we face what might be the greatest threat in our nation’s history. Most people are no better prepared to meet it than if their grandparents and their great-grandparents were in 1918. They’re like the proverbial grasshoppers that romped and played all summer while the ants stored up food for the winter. And when winter came, they perished.

While it’s true that this is a time that tries men’s souls, it is a great opportunity for chiropractic.

As Winston Churchill once said, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

Let’s be optimists! Let’s be forthright and tell our patients that staying adjusted, drinking plenty of water, eating right and keeping their bodies strong with exercise is no longer just a nice thing to do for yourself. It’s just not some palliation that we do as a hobby. It’s a life-saving necessity that we get people to this chiropractic mindset.

If you’re so out of adjustment, so full of junk food and so dehydrated that you can’t even tolerate a little pollen in the fall, or a little cat hair in the winter time, what do you think your body’s going to do with a dose of smallpox or anthrax? You’re going down.
We must rededicate ourselves to a personal and professional life that is dominated and guided by Lasting Purpose love.
If all the different political and racial factions of our nation can come together in this most challenging time, then surely we, in chiropractic, a profession built upon the firm foundation of loving and caring, can put aside our petty differences and stand together in unity, as the brothers and sisters that we are, for the good of humanity.

We give thanks to our Creator that we are members of the greatest health-care profession.

ICA President Dr. D.D. Humber has appointed me chairman of the organization’s International Committee, and I am going to help him take chiropractic to every nation to the world. We are going to send out our missionary-type chiropractors everywhere. The challenges will be great, but our love for humanity is greater. There will be long days and sleepless nights, but our comfort will come from knowing we are serving a great purpose.

Don’t let fear overcome you. Continue to love, to serve and to hope. So, be of heart! Be optimistic! Be dedicated! Be prudent! Achieve time after time! Attempt the impossible, and do it over and over and over again!

About the author: Sid E. Williams, B.S., D.C., is founder and president of Life University.

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