Have you ever wondered about the history of Chiropractic? How did it begin? Who started it all? The roots of chiropractic care can be traced back to as early as 2700 B.C. and 1500 B.C. in writings found in China and Greece. The writings mention spinal manipulation and moving the lower extremities in an attempt to alleviate low back pain.
Hippocrates, the Greek physician, who lived from 460 to 357 B.C., also published texts detailing the importance of a chiropractic-like philosophy and treatment. He is quoted in his writings as saying, “Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases”. In 1895, Daniel D. Palmer founded the Chiropractic profession in Davenport, Iowa. Palmer was well read in anatomy and medical journals and was known as a magnetic healer. He had this idea about chiropractic, where your health could be improved by allowing the spinal nerves to work as they were designed. (From “The History of Chiropractic”)
“THE SUBTLE SUBSTANCE OF THE SOUL”
CHIROPRACTIC’S DISCOVERY 130 years ago this month, and its journey to date, are a recognition and celebration of “the subtle substance of the soul,” as BJ Palmer describes the innate healing currents of Life coursing through the nervous system of our human anatomy in one of his books. Giving credit and paying homage to the Creator of the human temple of the Living God, he wrote in his philosophy text book,“The Power that made the body can heal the body.” (The picture above is my graduation picture from Chiropractic College in 1963)
This slogan is one of several framed and hung on the walls of the hallowed halls of Palmer College of Chiropractic (PCC) in Davenport, Iowa, reverently referred to as “The Fountainhead,” an apt title for the hallowed grounds from which sprang the second largest healthcare profession in the world, second only to medicine . . . and the largest drugless healing science and art in the world. PCC was the first of several more Chiropractic schools and colleges that sprang up both here in the US and abroad. There are some fifteen chiropractic colleges here in the States.
Chiropractic’s early philosophy was rooted in vitalism, naturalism, magnetism, spiritualism and other constructs that are not amenable to the scientific method, although Palmer tried to merge science and metaphysics.
A “RELIGIOUS PRACTICE” ?! . . . A “WORSHIPFUL OBLIGATION” ?!
During the period just prior to his death, D. D. Palmer was leaning toward making his discovery into a religion rather than a professional healing art—a suggestion that sent turbulent waves throughout the infant profession. However, whereas it aroused much criticism from “a few chiropractors,” it brought “greater applause” from his students and audiences than he had received with any of his other lectures. D.D. was keenly aware, even then, of how easily the vision of the spiritual, or “vibrational,” aspect of healing could get lost in the chiropractors’ preoccupation with bones and nerves, pain and relief therefrom, and that his healing art might become just another palliative therapy. The rationale within which he gave an adjustment was much larger than the patient’s medical condition or spinal subluxation, and his service was much greater to him than a hand-manipulation of the spine. It was a ritual, a religious practice, a worshipful obligation.
“. . .We deal with the magic power that transforms common food into living, loving, thinking clay; that robes the earth with beauty, and hues and scents the flowers with glory.” But it’s the first sentence of this famous quotation that is the clincher: “We chiropractors work with the subtle substance of the soul . . .”(B.J. Palmer, The Bigness of the Fellow Within, Ch. 11, “The Inner Power speaks.”).
[D.D. Palmer further declares the reason for wanting to make Chiropractic a religion.]
I hold it to be self-evident that all men and women who have acquired sufficient knowledge and skill to remove the nerve tension which prevents physical, mental and spiritual development, are engaged in a work of a higher order than that ordinarily required of, and performed by, the physician. They are practically the moral duties and obligations of religion and any attempt to prevent such acts by law is an unmitigated crime against humanity.
Chiropractic science, its art and philosophy, deal with human and spiritual phenomena. The conscientious reverent acknowledgment of the phenomena, in sentiment and act, connects the spiritual with the physical, and constitutes in its fullest and highest sense a religion….
By correcting these displacements of osseous tissue… I claim that I am rendering obedience, adoration and honor to the All-Wise Spiritual Intelligence, as well as a service to the segmented, individual portions thereof—a duty I owe to both God and mankind. In accordance with this aim and end, the Constitution of the United States and the statutes personal of California confer upon me and all persons of chiropractic faith the inalienable right to practice our religion without restraint or hindrance. (D. D. Palmer, The Chiropractor, “The Moral and Religious Duty of a Chiropractor,” 1914.)
Daniel Palmer was obviously onto something much larger and vastly more significant than the correction of pinched nerves, and I think he just wanted some time to let the fullness of what was emerging come forth. I believe he was protecting what was emerging and didn’t want the world to come in on his discovery until he had had time to finish formulating things in his own mind and prove them out in practice. He also foresaw the battle that surely lay ahead of him with the medical and legal systems, at a time when medical practice acts were being enacted by the states, and in a climate where “quacks” were being arrested, fined and thrown into prison. (Excerpted from REDISCOVERING THE SOUL OF CHIROPRACTIC by the author)
QUACKERY AND CHARLATANS
Speaking of medicine as the largest healthcare profession, another popular slogan hanging in the same hallowed halls of Palmer College was, and probably still is, “Iligitimati non corborundum,” liberally translated from the Latin as “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
You see, Chiropractic was ignominiously dubbed quackery and its practitioners charlatans by the medical profession in those early years as it made its competitive debut into the heath care arena, and as chiropractors began opening up offices to practice this newfound healing art. Needless to say, its invasion into their fiercely guarded territory was not with warm welcome by the medical community. The public soon got wind of this drama and people began chanting “quack, quack, quack” as they walked by chiropractic clinics. I’m not making this stuff up folks. Many chiropractors were arrested, tried in courts of law for “practicing medicine without a license” and told to cease and desist. When they didn’t cease and desist, as many as thirty or more chiropractors in Louisiana were arrested and thrown into jail. Somehow I escaped notice as though my office had some protective shroud hanging over it.Hmmm.
But that didn’t stop patients from seeking out Chiropractic care as many of them went to the jail houses for their spinal adjustments. Right here in my own state of Louisiana chiropractors went to jail where they continued seeing their patients, giving spinal adjustments on portable tables they were allowed to set up in their jail cells. This drama went on until one strong soul among us stood up to the medical monopoly and shouted “ENOUGH OF THIS INJUSTICE!”
This famous chiropractor took his pivotal case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to finally settle the issue once and for all: that Chiropractic is not the practice of medicine. It came to be called “the England Case,” named after the late Dr. Jerry England who was the defendant representing a collective of about thirty or more doctors here in Louisiana. But that’s another classic and dramatic story altogether, which incidentally took place just as I was starting up my first practice here in Louisiana. The memorable date was 1963-64.
This all took place here in the South as Louisiana was the last state in the USA to license chiropractors, which finally came to fruition in 1974 with a lot of organized pressure exerted upon the legislators by the patients of chiropractors themselves. They had formed a coalition under the heading “Louisiana Chiropractic Patients Association,” headed up, not by a chiropractor, but by a layman and chiropractic patient, Dave Saunders. They had even erected billboards along the highways entering the state from all directions that blatantly announced “Welcome to Louisiana! The only state that has failed to license chiropractors.” They went so far as to stage a funeral procession with hearse and mourners, even a coffin with a poster that read “The Death of Chiropractic in Louisiana” which they and several chiropractors (yours truly included) carried into the House of Representatives in Baton Rouge, then in session, to make our point and in particular to attract the news media, which it surely did.
In the end, it was by the political influence of the Labor Union, headed up by Louisiana Senator Victor Bussie, then president of the AFL-CIO, that finally got a licensing bill passed in 1974 for the Chiropractic profession in Louisiana. That put an end to the abusive persecution of chiropractors, not only here in Louisiana but throughout the entire Nation. The “Fight to Climb” had finally brought chiropractic to the top of the healthcare mountain, if you’ll allow me this metaphor.
There’s a lot more to this drama, as state and national organized efforts by professional associations had formed and played crucial roles in shifting and abating the tides that threatened to wash the profession of Chiropractic out of the healthcare field and clear off of the planet itself. You younger folks reading this may be in disbelief. We elders, however, remember those days all too well. In a wonderful way, they served to bring us chiropractors in the state together in our fight for a common cause and against a common enemy.
As we settled back into our practices however, with medical insurance now covering chiropractic care, the fire in our bellies subsided as each one returned to his and her isolated practice, only to mingle with colleagues once a year at conventions where we earned required credits for license renewal, updated adjusting techniques and methodology of service . . . and especially to keep abreast of the best way to file claims for prompt insurance reimbursement.It was a good day for our patients as well with insurance companies now paying for their care.
The struggle to rise and survive the opposing forces of the monopolizing medical profession in those days, among many interesting stories, are immortalized in the iconic “Green Text Books” and in DD’s and BJ’s several published works, among which are such titles as THE FIGHT TO CLIMB, UP FROM BELOW THE BOTTOM, CONFLICTS CLARIFIED, THE CHIROPRACTOR 1910, THE BIGNESS OF THE FELLOW WITHIN and other publications.
I will continue sharing the story of Chiropractic’s origin and early years in my next instalment of this series, GET THE BIG IDEA.” Until then,
Healing Tones 
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