History of Chiropractic

DISCOVERY OF CHIROPRACTIC
D.D. Palmer was born in Ontario, Canada in 1845, he moved to the United States when he was 20 years old. He spent the years after the Civil War teaching school, raising bees and selling sweet raspberries in the Iowa and Illinois River towns along the bluffs on either side of the Mississippi River.

While living in What Cheer, Iowa in 1885, D.D. became familiar with the work of Paul Caster, a magnetic healer who had some success in Ottumwa. D.D. moved his family to Burlington, near Ottumwa, and learned the techniques of magnetic healing. This was a common therapy. At the time practitioners used the body’s natural magnetic properties for healing purposes. Two years later he moved his family again, this time to Davenport, Iowa, where he opened the Palmer Cure and Infirmary.

THE FIRST ADJUSTMENT
On September 18, 1895, D.D. Palmer performed his first adjustment on a janitor, Harvey Lillard, who had been deaf for seventeen years. The man’s hearing returned, and because of the success of Palmer’s spinal adjustment, the modern recorded history of Chiropractic began.

Over the succeeding months, other patients came to him with diverse problems including flu, sciatica, migraine headaches, stomach complaints, epilepsy and heart problems. D.D. Palmer found each of these conditions responded well to the adjustments which he was calling "hand treatments." Later he coined the term Chiropractic, from the Greek words chiro, meaning "hand" and practic, meaning (practice or operation). He renamed his clinic the Palmer School and Infirmary of Chiropractic.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHIROPRACTIC
It was D.D. Palmer’s son, Bartlett Joshua Palmer, who is credited with developing Chiropractic. Born in 1881, B.J., as he was always called, was a prolific author and speaker who was in great demand by audiences worldwide. He had an extraordinary gift as a salesman and his product was Chiropractic.

B.J. felt a deep concern for his father’s clinic and infirmary and felt responsible for continuing the school from which he, himself, had graduated in 1902. From the time of his graduation, he became a teacher at the school and also had a private Chiropractic practice. In 1905, he moved the school and clinic to a large victorian home on Brady Street Hill in Davenport, Iowa. The building was partitioned to provide living quarters for B.J. and his young wife, Mabel, who had graduated that same year from the Palmer School. The house also included sleeping quarters for the students and classrooms in the basement.

B.J. worked tirelessly for the advancement of Chiropractic over the years. Today every doctor of Chiropractic owes B.J. Palmer a great debt. Without B.J.’s relentless work over his lifetime, the profession would have ended in 1913, along with the passing of D.D.Palmer, instead of flourishing as we enter the 21st century.

TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY
Throughout the years, Chiropractic has always been in search and taken advantage of the latest advances in the science of better health. From its connection as the first profession to use the x-ray machine in 1910 to the most modern hydro-therapy equipment, the Chiropractors have been improving their techniques whenever possible.

Still, the profession has seen no better way of dealing with a misplaced vertebrae than a specific adjustment given with the proper amount of force by a skilled, practiced professional, there are many varieties of techniques, equipment, and adjunctive therapies, but the goal is the elimination of vertebral subluxations.

From the earliest roots, Chiropractors have grouped together for the advancement of research, practice building, and public education. The Federation of Straight Chiropractors and organizations (FSCO), the International Chiropractic Association (ICA), the American Chiropractic Association (ACA), International Chiropractic Pediatric Association and (ICPA) and the World Chiropractic Association (WCA) are among the many groups throughout the world that promote Chiropractic and good health through their numerous programs.