Abstract
BackgroundThe founder of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer, constructed a model of causation of disease based on his seminal experience with a patient, Harvey Lillard, who lost his hearing at the instant of injuring his upper back, but had his hearing restored suddenly 17 years later after receiving spinal manipulation. Palmer’s model of disease causation, that of displaced vertebrae impinging on spinal nerves and thereby disrupting the innervation of dependent organs, was in fact incongruent with what was known at the time about human neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. The current study proposes and tests an alternative hypothesis: that increased afferent input from paraspinal muscles attenuates the central transmission of auditory information.MethodsBetween September 13 and November 13, 2013, forty healthy young adults were recruited and randomly divided into two cohorts: one receiving successive trials of sham TENS, and the second receiving sham and then authentic TENS. During the administration of sham and authentic TENS to the upper thoracic spine, hearing acuity was measured to determine perception thresholds at the frequencies normally tested clinically.ResultsIn the first cohort, there were no differences in perception thresholds in the first and second trials of sham TENS, speaking to the reliability of the testing process. In the second cohort, there were no significant differences in perception thresholds during sham and authentic TENS.ConclusionsWithin the constraints of the current study design, including demographic characteristics and TENS parameters, there was no evidence that innocuous afferent input to upper thoracic paraspinal muscles modulated thresholds of audibility.
Highlights
The founder of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer, constructed a model of causation of disease based on his seminal experience with a patient, Harvey Lillard, who lost his hearing at the instant of injuring his upper back, but had his hearing restored suddenly 17 years later after receiving spinal manipulation
Palmer found a thoracic vertebra ‘racked’ from its normal position and reasoned that if he replaced the vertebra by spinal manipulation, the patient’s hearing would be restored [1]
None of the subjects had a history of hearing complaints
Summary
The founder of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer, constructed a model of causation of disease based on his seminal experience with a patient, Harvey Lillard, who lost his hearing at the instant of injuring his upper back, but had his hearing restored suddenly 17 years later after receiving spinal manipulation. The founder of modern chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer, attributed his discovery of the underlying mechanisms of spinal manipulation to his clinical experience with two patients. The first of these was Harvey Lillard, a gentleman who reported sudden deafness coincident with an acute strain to his upper back. Palmer found a thoracic vertebra ‘racked’ from its normal position and reasoned that if he replaced the vertebra by spinal manipulation, the patient’s hearing would be restored [1] As it turned out, he was correct in his clinical prediction. I began to reason if two diseases, so dissimilar as deafness and heart trouble, came from impingement, a pressure on nerves, were not other disease due to a similar cause? the science (knowledge) and art (adjusting) of Chiropractic were formed at that time.
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