Figure 1

Schematic depiction of the so-called pinched nerve theory [1, 2], which was put forth around the turn of the century in an attempt to explain the rather immediate amelioration of symptoms sometimes observed in patients presumed to be suffering from internal organ disease, in response to therapies that were delivered to purely somatic structures (e.g., spinal manipulation).

Central to this theory was the suggestion that misalignments of the bones of the vertebral column (i.e., "subluxations") were capable of causing encroachment of both somatomotor and visceromotor spinal nerves as they exited their respective intervertebral foramina. It was reasoned that such "nerve interference" then resulted in the pinching off of "vital forces" normally delivered by these nerves to various segmentally related internal organs.

Even when stripped of their "vitalistic" elements, such theories are now considered, by most, to be gravely unsatisfactory when confronted by current, well-established scientific concepts regarding human disease and dysfunction in general, the various roles played by both the somatomotor and visceromotor divisions of the peripheral nervous system, as well as the contributions of the vertebral column.