By Dr. Ben Lerner and by Dr. Greg Loman

Chiropractic, the only health care system discovered and developed in America, celebrated a birthday last week. On Sept. 18, 1895, Dr. D.D. Palmer of Davenport, Iowa, gave the first chiropractic adjustment. His patient was Harvey Lillard, a janitor in Palmer's building who had been deaf since a traumatic accident several years earlier. Palmer, who had been studying the spine and nerve system, found a bump on Lillard's upper spine that he presumed to be a spinal bone out of position (a subluxation).

After the doctor adjusted that bump several times, soon Lillard could hear again, thus the amazing discovery of chiropractic.

Today, subluxations continue to be the root cause of spinal cord and nerve dysfunction and interference causing body breakdown and disease. Subluxation-causing interference to the central nerve system has been found to be the number one cause and constant in all pain, illness and disease.

Today, thanks to D.D. Palmer and his son B.J., 7 million people receive relief from needless pain and suffering every week through chiropractic adjustments. Chiropractic is the only method capable of maximizing the natural, God-given strength of the human body and its capacity to heal without using drugs or surgery.

What is Chiropractic?

Many people are confused about what chiropractic is, because it is not only a technology, science and an art, but also a way of thinking. With today's health care problems at their peak, chiropractors are willing to think outside the realm of common thought so that better, safer, more natural solutions can be created.

For example, most people believe that illness begins when a germ outside your body somehow runs into you and gets inside. The only solution then is to bombard those bugs with a lot of drugs. That one-size-fits-all scenario doesn't fit all the time, however.

For example, remember the last time you walked past a dirty dumpster at a restaurant or a hotel. Every time you see a dirty dumpster, what comes along with that dirty dumpster: rats, roaches, raccoons and many bugs. These pests always seem to gravitate to the dirty trashcan, not a clean one.

Why? It's likely that the dirty trashcan has the food those pests need to survive. If you took the time to put out a clean trashcan and kept it clean every single day, the vermin and bugs would never show up, because there is nothing to eat there.

Trashing our bodies

Simply put, the reason many of us become sick is because our body is a dirty trashcan. For years, we have been taught that sickness starts with germs and bacteria, viruses and any type of micro bacterial invasion. Later, the presence of these bacteria and viruses create illnesses that develop in our bodies.

This thought came about in the late 1800s when the world famous Louis Pasteur developed his germ theory. His whole theory was based on germs attacking the body. Then along came Robert Koch who believed that it was the healthiness of the body -- not germs -- that determined whether the bacterial virus would show up or could even stay alive in the environment.

This concept is very similar to the image of the dirty trashcan. If you keep your trashcan clean, the varmints never show up. If you keep your body healthy and clean, diseases never show up either. So, if you think about it, a healthy body is a clean trashcan.

A Near-Death Experience

Almost 90 years ago, an illness plagued the U.S. that would have made anthrax seem like the hiccups. More than a million people died with what was called the St. Louis Flu in 1918. If you got the St. Louis Flu, you were going to die.

Strangely enough, around that same time, chiropractic, the only American born health care profession, was close to extinction only 23 years after its discovery. In the time just after the end of World War I, laws against slander were so lenient that medical doctors were allowed to openly attack the chiropractic profession without any regard to truth, legality or the best interest of the patients.

Because medical doctors were making it so hard to have a practice, chiropractors were making mostly house calls. In 1918, chiropractors in Wisconsin began going door-to-door adjusting anyone who had the St. Louis Flu.

As a result, an amazing thing occurred. Not a single person with the St. Louis Flu who was adjusted by a chiropractor died.

The news about Chiropractic swept across Wisconsin and eventually the whole country. Within a short period of time, chiropractic became so well known as the best defense against the St. Louis flu that it saved the profession. Unfortunately, many of the myths and legends started by medical doctors way back then persist today.

After the St. Louis Flu had come and gone and chiropractic began to take off, the major medical association realized they failed to eliminate the profession. As a last ditch effort, the state medical boards began offering chiropractors medical licenses, figuring if you can't beat them, control them. Not a single chiropractor took their offer!

Chiropractic never pretended to be a cure for St. Louis Flu, anthrax, back pain, headaches, or cancer back in 1918 or today. Chiropractic simply removes pressure, pinching, tension and interference from the brain stem, spinal cord and nerves. This maximizes your body's God-given strength and its ability to heal and protect itself without the use of dangerous drugs or surgery.

Chiropractic allows your body to be as healthy as possible.

Dr. Ben Lerner, Dr. Greg Loman and Dr. Rob Schiffman have three of the largest chiropractic centers in the history of the chiropractic profession. Their organization, Teach The World About Chiropractic, teaches a high-tech, vitalistic chiropractic approach to wellness care. They also teach a God-centered lifestyle through Dr. Lerner's New York Times best selling book, Body by God: The Owner's Manual For Maximized Living.