Page 13 - Spring 21

the right hind, compared to the left. Upon examination, I was able to confirm the patella situation but I did not consider it to be a primary cause, more a conformational issue exacerbated by incorrect angle of pull of the thigh muscles.
A chiropractic-type check revealed thoracolumbar misalignment and lumbosacral misalignment, the result being a pelvic alignment that was not in line with the axis of the body. I applied a gentle and quick manipulation and the result was an immediate calming and cessation of the hyperactivity. In line with my philosophy, despite being a medical man, that when appropriate ‘the best medicine is no medicine’, I did no more and sent Elsa home with a request for a report in the next week.
This is the report last evening, just two days later:
“I just had to update you today. Elsa and I are so very happy with the results of your treatment, it has made such a big difference.
1 She is so much calmer, slept a lot yesterday and had a very contented night’s sleep. Normally I hear her moving around a lot, but she did not move once.
2 Now going for a wee like a girl dog not like a boy dog, lifting one of her back legs as she went.
3 NOSKIPPINGexceptforonceortwice,amazing.
4 Seemssomuchhappier.
Long may it continue. We cannot thank you enough for the miracle you have performed.
I will update you again in a week or so as requested.”
Receiving a report like this (and we have many but not so comprehensively and succinctly put) is a massive tonic, especially during these dark times of COVID chaos and anti-CAVM mayhem. It appears that, unsolicited, the owner has ticked all the boxes Hahnemann advised are
necessary for a ‘cure’, including the all-important improvement in ‘self’ or ‘wellbeing’. The word ‘miracle’ appears here and can wrongly elevate the procedure to arcane levels. It is no such thing. It is a simple response to a simple physical/structural challenge. The outcome is the only judge.
No medicine that I know, of whatever creed, and I believe no surgery of any type would properly resolve such a challenge. I believe that few events can make the case more strongly for widening one’s therapeutic ‘repertoire’ if one is to aspire to Hahnemann’s first three aphorisms in the Organon:
1. A physician’s high and only mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure as it is termed.
2. The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health, or removal and annihilation of the disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable, and most harmless way, on easily comprehensible principles.
3. If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in diseases, that is to say, in every individual case of disease (knowledge of disease, indication), if he clearly perceives what is curative in medicines, that is to say, in each individual medicine (knowledge of medical powers), and if he knows how to adapt, according to clearly defined principles, what is curative in medicines to what he has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient, so that the recovery must ensue - to adapt it, as well in respect to the suitability of the medicine most appropriate according to its mode of action to the case before him (choice of the remedy, the medicine indicated), as also in respect to the exact mode of preparation and quantity of it required (proper dose), and the proper period for repeating the dose: - if, finally, he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case and is aware
... the committed physician or vet is obliged to widen the scope of his or her practice whenever the current toolbox proves insufficient for the job in hand.
how to remove them, so that the restoration may be permanent: then he understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the healing art.
It would appear that, in this case, spinal alignment was both the ‘causa morbis’ of the observed signs and the ‘obstacle to recovery’. As an equine parallel, particularly in Warmblood Dressage horses, I have seen a ‘locking’ hind leg (patellar issue) respond to pelvic realignment alone. It seems self-evident to state that, if the obstacle and the cause are not addressed, no amount of medicine or surgery can achieve a cure. If both are correctly addressed, there must be many cases, in herd medicine and individual medicine, where no other intervention is required to achieve the desired outcome. When I was doing a great deal of work on intensive farms, many was the time we could resolve apparently major health issues with dietary and management changes alone. Likewise in individual medicine. While I am a homeopath at heart and for the main part of my working time, I am unashamed of straying from that path into other therapeutic areas.
This one ‘chiropractic case’ to my mind offers us a very relevant parable to the wider practice context, suggesting that the committed physician or veterinarian is obliged to widen the scope of his or her practice whenever the current toolbox proves insufficient for the job in hand. Learning is exciting and rewarding. Life should be a constant learning process and I want a hole dug for me when I stop learning.
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