Chiropractors believe that subluxations are a major predisposing factor to the disease, because they prevent the nervous system from working optimally to help keep the body healthy. By correcting vertebral subluxations, the chiropractic adjustment can help keep up the overall health of the nervous system and the body's organs.

  The chiropractic adjustment is also helpful in preventing everyday wear and tear on joints and ligaments by maintaining the proper positioning of the joints. It can also help decrease accumulation of scar formation after serious injury, thus preventing later weakness or stiffness of the affected joints.

  One of the usual complaints from patients seeking chiropractic care is low back pain. In 1990 a two-year study of chiropractic  was completed by Britain's Medical Research Council. This treatment was found more effective than hospital out-patient care for low back pain. Those patients who was treated with chiropractic care continued to suffer less pain than those treated by medical doctors. Studies conducted by the Florida Department of Labor and the Rand Corporation in Los Angeles came to the same conclusions. Moreover, according to records from the 1986 Worker's Compensation Fund, the average medical patient was paid ten times more compensation than the average chiropractic patient for the treatment of low back pain. Even though the chiropractic patient tends to pay a little more for individual treatments than the medical patient, the medical costs were more extreme due to the fact that patients receiving medical care required more treatments.

  There is also a general shift of attitude within the medical community that admits the vital importance of the nervous system in relation to the normal functioning and relative health of the body.

  Chester Wilk, D.C., of Chicago, author of several books on the subject, states that the following diseases have responded well to chiropractic care: respiratory conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, sinusitis (inflammation of a sinus), bronchial asthma, heart trouble, high blood pressure, and even the common cold.

  One woman, suffering from shortness of breath, heart palpitations, fatigue, depression, and sharp pains radiating down her arm, came to Dr. Davis.  These symptoms had begun three months before when she had felt a sharp twinge in her upper back and neck while putting away some sweaters on a high closet shelf. The woman had gone to an emergency hospital because she thought she might be having a heart attack, only to be released the next day with a clean bill of health and the suggestion that she relax.

  Thanks to the spinal palpation Dr. Davis  revealed several subluxations of the vertebrae in her upper spine along with a compensating disrelationship in her neck vertebrae, which was forcing her to stoop. He diagnosed her condition as a common injury called cervical or thoracic angina, which can occur when lifting over the head or after suffering trauma to the upper back and neck. By using chiropractic adjustment, muscle stimulation, ultrasound, and hot packs, Dr. Davis was able to reverse the woman's symptoms after three visits and completely remove her pain after the fourth.

  Thanks to chiropractic therapy patients often discover that the underlying causes of their illnesses are not what they expected them to be. A man who had an extreme pain after ejaculation came to Dr. Blaich. He supposed that the problem stemmed from his vasectomy. The medical doctors he had seen hadn't been able to come up with any other conclusion. After a series of tests, Dr. Blaich determined that the man's condition was actually caused by a misalignment in his lower back, which was affecting his prostate, and had nothing to do with his vasectomy. In a matter of three or four treatments with Dr. Blaich, the man's discomfort disappeared completely.

  Recently in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics  was published one interesting case: a man whose speech was impaired due to a spastic constriction of his vocal chords, was prescribed psychiatric therapy, because when he visited two university hospitals, nothing was found. The man visited a chiropractor instead, who diagnosed a subluxation in the upper spine. His speech began to return after the second adjustment, and by the fifth adjustment, he was completely free of any speech impediments. When he became raucous several months later, additional adjustments cleared up the problem, which never returned.

  Chiropractic is also successful in treating various disturbances of the body, including peripheral joint injuries (hands, knees, elbows, hips, shoulders), sprains, arthritis, bursitis, menstrual difficulties, plus a wide range of emotional problems, from mild depression to schizophrenia. Evidence also shows that chiropractic adjustment combined with proper nutrition can improve, and in some cases reverse, osteoarthritis.

  Daniel David Palmer, physiologist and anatomist, founded the modern-day system and theory of chiropractic in 1895. 

  Palmer had met a janitor who had been deaf for seventeen years, following an injury to his upper spine. While examining the janitor's spine, Palmer found a misaligned vertebra that corresponded to the spot the man had injured just prior to losing his hearing. By administering a specific thrust or adjustment to the vertebra, Palmer restored the janitor's hearing.

  David Palmer's philosophy of health is based on the idea that all living beings are endowed with what he termed "inborn intelligence." According to Palmer, this intelligence regulates all the vital functions of the body as it flows through the central nervous system. Because of this belief, Palmer felt that the primary task of the chiropractor was to remove nerve interference caused by subluxations so that the inborn intelligence could carry out its role of maintaining the body's health and equilibrium without obstruction.

  In contrast to the growing popularity of medication and surgical intervention, Palmer's approach appealed to patients who had faith in natural methods of curing, he said that chiropractic contained the science of life, the knowledge of how organisms act in health and disease, and also the art of adjusting the neuroskeleton.