Nothing really original to write with this blog. I just wanted to share this great exchange between Dr. B.J. Palmer and Dr. Charles Mayo (of the famed Mayo Clinic) after Dr. Mayo brought his own wife to the B.J. Palmer Research Clinic after his many failed attempts at getting her well.

BLACK vs. WHITE

     A few years ago, a certain world-renowned physician and surgeon, conducting a world-renowned clinic, brot his wife to us for HER health. He was one of the world’s greatest diagnosticians. He had taken his wife to other world-renowned diagnosticians in Europe. He had tried EVERYTHING, naturally, to get HIS wife well. All failed. After meeting them, we asked: “Why have you brot your wife to us?” His answer was the usual: “I brot my wife TO YOU for YOUR professional service. I want to see WHAT CHIROPRACTIC can do.” Our reply was characteristic: “This is a case of Greek meeting Greek; a test of steel against steel; a test of our SIMPLE Chiropractic principle and practice against your COMPLEX medical theories and experiments.” With that, we had spinographs made of her spinal column. He wanted to know WHY we wanted ONLY such. “Because we are going to locate a vertebral-subluxation-cause of her sickness, so we can correctly adjust it.” He rejoined: “There is no such thing” and “if there were, YOU couldn’t adjust it by hand only.” It was then we said to this world-renowned diagnostician and surgeon: “While you are here, we are going to ask you to keep your mouth shut.” After analyzing spinographs, checking her with NCM and NCGH, we told him we were going to give AN ADJUSTMENT to that vertebral subluxation. We asked him if he desired to see us do it. We delivered the adjustment, and while the patient was resting on a couch, we retired to our office where he said, “Is that ALL you are going to do?” He asked: “What is wrong with my wife; WHERE is she sick; WHAT is YOUR diagnosis?” To this we replied: “We don’t know—and, what is more, we don’t care. YOU know, but what good has it done your wife? If YOUR diagnosis WAS correct and YOUR remedies of value, you wouldn’t be here.” He then said: “You are a very ignorant man.” To this, paradoxically we agreed that “We are ignorant of everything YOU think WE should know.” It was then WE said: “You, too, are a very ignorant man. YOU are ignorant of everything WE think YOU should know.”

—“WE know cause; you know nothing about it.

—“You know all about effects; we know nothing about them.

     That’s the difference in YOUR approach which has done your wife NO good, and OUR approach which WILL get your wife well.” “I am ignorant of everything YOU think I ought to know about diseases in the belly side of the sick. YOU know all this—what good has it done YOUR wife? The fact that YOU brot her HERE proves YOUR methods have failed. “YOU are ignorant of everything I think YOU ought to know about CAUSE of dis-ease in the backbone of sick people. You know THERE IS A DIFFERENCE or YOU wouldn’t be HERE with YOUR wife. “If both of our approaches were the same, you would have stayed home. It IS that difference in approach and delivery that brot you here. Because of reports YOU heard of the success of OUR methods, of vertebral subluxation analysis and adjustment, YOU brot your wife HERE to us. “YOU know EVERYTHING there is to know about things on and in the belly-side. We know NOTHING—and care less—about the belly-side. YOU know NOTHING about things wrong on and in the back-bone side. You know EFFECTS, symptoms, pathologies, backwards and forwards, in the belly. We do not! “You do not know CAUSE, inside or outside, top or bottom, in the back-bone. We do! “We do not need know what YOU know to get sick people well. You DO need know what WE know—the what, where, when, and how of CAUSE in the back-bone—if you ever expect to get sick people well.” East is East and West is West, and ne’er the twain shall meet. How do you suppose it would have appeared if I had asked this physician—this world’s great surgeon and one of its great diagnosticians—about symptoms and pathologies; or what sickness his wife had, where it was, whether acute or chronic? That man knew more about all HE thot necessary to know, in one minute and in one brain cell, than I could know in all our brain in all our life. But—and here’s THE essential difference—HE was HERE with HIS WIFE for OUR professional service which was at opposite poles from all HE knew. How do you suppose HE would have appeared TO US, had HE began asking questions regarding Innate Intelligence, direct brain-cell-to-tissue-cell nerve fiber continuity, mental impulse nerve force continuity flow, vertebral subluxation, location, position, occlusion of spinal canal or intervertebral foramen, pressure upon nerves, reduction in quantity flow; how, where, and why to give an adjustment; and all this as THE CAUSE of his wife’s dis-ease, whatever it was, wherever it was? Each of us a master in his own field, each of us ignorant in the other’s field. We played ball on OUR diamond and insisted HE stay on HIS. WE would have been foolish to begin asking his wife about her symptoms and pathologies, trying to diagnose. He knew more about those in one second than we COULD know in all our life. HE would have been foolish to begin asking US questions about THE CAUSE of her sickness because we knew more about THAT in one second than HE could know in all his life. She stayed several months, and went home well.

What is THE test?

—is it failure or success

—which proves whether one method is better than other

—whether it is right or wrong

—competent or inefficient?

What is the value of education if it fails?

—it is better to know ONE THING that works than a million things that aren't so and don’t work. The fear of losing his wife and the greed to save her life were what brot them to our Clinic. It was the first law of life—self-preservation.

Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP

Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP is a pediatric, family wellness and upper cervical specific Chiropractor. He is an active member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA). Dr. Jarek has postgraduate certification in Pediatric Chiropractic through the ICPA. Dr. Jarek also has postgraduate certification in the HIO Specific Brain Stem technique through The TIC Institute. Dr. Jarek is happily married to his wife Regina. They live in Youngstown, Ohio with their daughter Ruby.