Do Germs Really Cause Disease?

“Illnesses hover constantly above us, their seeds blown by the wind, but they do not set in the terrain unless the terrain is ready to receive them.”
Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard was a 19th century French physiologist and contemporary of French chemist Louis Pasteur. The two famous doctors argued throughout their lives as to what really was the cause of disease, the soil or the seed. Pasteur insisted it was the seed (germ) while Bernard claimed it was the soil (the body). On Pasteur’s death bed, it is said that he admitted that Bernard was right; he said, ” it is the soil, not the seed.”

The seed (germ factors) or the soil (the body, host factors) argument was as prevalent then as it is now again today. Today many medical authors are agreeing that, although germs are certainly a factor involved in the diseases of man, the germ involved in the diseases of man, the germ alone is not the cause of disease.

Dr. B. J. Palmer, the developer of chiropractic, stated: “If the ‘germ theory of disease’ were correct, there’d be no one living to believe it.”

Think about it for a moment, and you will see the common sense in Dr. Palmer’s statement.

Contemporary medical author Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D. makes the observation in his book” Healing from Within”:1“Of course, disease-producing micro-organisms are always present, but usually they can be fought off successfully. However, some individuals never get sick, while other’s pick up every cold in the neighborhood. So although the germ may be one of the essential and contributing causes, it alone is not sufficient to produce illness.”

Another accomplished and noted medical writer Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D., goes one step further, he contends that germs are not causes at all, but merely agents of disease. In his popular book “Health and Healing,” he states:2“Germs are agents of disease. …Agents of disease are not causes of disease…agents of disease do not cause us to get sick. They are merely potential vectors of illness waiting for chances to do their mischief. Given a chance, they will do it. Chances come along because of the natural fluctuations of our cycles of relative health.

Agents of disease are all around us, not only in the form of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, but as a multitude of potential irritants, such as carcinogenic chemicals, allergens, insects, toxic plants, and so forth. A person solidly equilibrated in a phase of relative health can often interact with these agents and not get sick. Since internal factors determine the nature of our relationships with them, the true causes of disease are internal.”

He goes on to suggest a philosophy that closely parallels chiropractic thinking. Referring to the cause of disease coming from inside, not outside, he states:“This principle suggests other ways of thinking about prevention and treatment than those predominant in conventional medicine. Rather than warring on disease agents with the hope (vain, I suspect) of eliminating them, we ought to worry more about strengthening resistance to them and learning to live in balance with them more of the time.”

Dr. D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, made a similar statement in his 1910 text:3 “The Science of chiropractic has modified our views concerning life, death, health, and disease. We no longer believe that disease is an entity, something foreign to the body, which may enter from without, and with which we have to grasp, struggle, fight and conquer, or submit and succumb to its ravages. Disease is a disturbed condition, not a thing of enmity. Disease is an abnormal performance of certain functions: the abnormal activity has its causes.”
And where does this all leave us? Some medical doctors and most Chiropractors agree that the germ, though being part of the disease syndrome, is not the direct cause of disease. First a person must be susceptible to the germ. Germs will always be with us and our concern should be to strengthen our resistance to them.

As Dr. D.D. Palmer stated, “Disease is abnormal performance of certain functions: the abnormal activity has its causes.” Chiropractic has sought to find these causes which often are due to nerve interference along the spine caused by a spinal misalignment, called subluxation. Subluxations can impair normal nerve transmission which then causes abnormal body function, lowering the body’s resistance and making the body susceptible to disease.

After adjusting 1,000 infants with infections of the ears, eyes, nose and throat, Dr. Gutmann of Germany reported his observations and conclusions. His report indicates that problems in the upper cervical vertebral joints (subluxations) are involved in lowering the infants resistance to infections. He stated that when infants exhibit these infectious problems they “should be examined and, if required, specifically adjusted…the success of the adjustment over shadows every other type of treatment.” This indicates that chiropractic care improves immunity, promotes healing and helps fight infections. D.D. Palmer’s 1910 prediction is now coming true.3″In the near future Chiropractic will be as much valued for its preventative qualities as it now is for adjusting and relieving the cause of ailments.”

Chiropractic Science holds that regular chiropractic care helps prevent disease and maintains the body in a high state of health. That is why millions of people choose to receive regular monthly chiropractic care.

The cause of disease is within you. It is the lack of your body’s ability to ward off disease. Increase this ability through the natural drugless method of chiropractic care.

As Dr. Robert A. Aldrich, M.D. Professor of Preventative Medicine, University of Colorado states:1 ” … The maintenance of health should take precedence over the treatment of disease…” To this statement, Chiropractors heartily concur. For a happier, healthier life include regular chiropractic care in your health maintenance program.

1. HEALING FROM WITHIN, by Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D., Random House Inc., Alfred A. Knope, Inc., New York, NY
2. HEALTH AND HEALING by Andrew Weil, M.D., Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
3. THE SCIENCE, ART AND PHILOSOPHY OF CHIROPRACTIC, D.D. Palmer, D.C., Ph. C.. Palmer College of Chiropractic, Davenport, Iowa

Tags: bacteria, Chiropractic, germ theory, germs, pasteur, virus