General adjustment, on the other hand means either the adjustment of all palpable subluxations, or of all the most noticeable ones, or of all found providing that no two successive vertebrae be adjusted, according to the beliefs of different elements in the profession. Specific adjusting relies upon the diagnosis and requires correct interpretation of disease. General adjusting considers only the condition of the spine and is given upon the principle that if the spine is right the man is right--a perfectly correct principle regardless of whether or not the general adjustment is advisable. Let us consider some of the arguments for and against each method and reach a conclusion if possible. The use of specific adjustment demands of the Chiropractor an accurate diagnosis and compels him to get his mind into direct contact with the exact condition of the patient in order to select the proper vertebrae. Sometimes the less prominent subluxation causes a more acute or dangerous disease than the more pronounced. Specific adjusting tends to develop more discriminating and accurate palpation. Specific adjusting weakens and shocks the weak or nervous patient less than general adjusting. It also concentrates the recuperative or reparatory power of the patient on the parts which _most need repair_. The body possesses only a certain limited capacity for combating disease or building weakened tissue. To scatter this force widely is to weaken its effect in any particular locality. The habit of specific adjustment and of selecting proper vertebrae enables the Chiropractor to explain definitely at any time just what he is doing and why he is doing it. We assert that in adjusting a vertebra we are removing the primary cause of disease. It is sometimes awkward to be asked if the patient has nine diseases or if it takes nine subluxations to cause one case of acute coryza. A correct answer to either question leaves an embarrassing discrepancy between theory and practice. In favor of the practice of general adjusting it has been said that errors in diagnosis become unimportant if all subluxations be adjusted; that if the spine be straightened the patient _must_ recover. Against the first statement, which is forceful because diagnosticians are so notably liable to err, it may be said that errors in palpation are almost, if not quite, as frequent as errors in other branches of diagnosis and that one’s tendency to err is less if all possible methods be checked against each other than if one only is used. The second statement is quite true; but it is based upon the assumption that in ordinary practice the spine _may_ be straightened completely. As a matter of fact this rarely, if ever, occurs. It is practically impossible ever to thoroughly “line up” a spine. The best that has been done as yet except in acute subluxations is to so modify subluxations that disease disappears.