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. This is how Palmer described what happened.  "Harvey Lillard... could not hear the racket of a wagon orn the street or the ticking of a watch.  I made inquiry as to the cause of his deafness and was informed that when he was exerting himself in a cramped, stooping position, he felt something give way in his back and immediately became deaf.  

An examination showed a vertebra racked from it's normal position .  I reasoned that if that vertebra was replaced, the man's hearing should be restored.  With this object in view, a half hour's talk persuaded Mr. Lillard to allow me to replace it.  I racked it into position by using the spinous process as a lever and soon the man could hear as before."  Palmer also wrote in his journal, I believe I have found a cure for deafness."  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."  He wrote in his journal, "I believe i have found a cure for everything." 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.  Palmer was arrested for practicing medicine without a license, a charge he denied claiming chiropractic had nothing to do with the practice of medicine.  It was around this time that Palmer wrote in his journal, "I have found a cure for nothing.  It is not the job of the chiropractor to cure anything.  The body heals itself.  The job of the chiropractor is to remove the interference from the body's ability to heal itself." 

 Misaligned ofr subluxated vertebrae can put pressure on discs causing them to bulge, herniate or degenerate, and on other joints in the spine causing friction, inflammation and swelling putting pressure or stress on the nerves, diminishing the ability of the nerve to coordinate functions ranging from immune function, hormonal control, breathing, blood pressure, mood, sensation and movement.  Chiropractors have helped people with a variety of health problems by removing the interference caused by misaligned or subluxated vertebrae with their body's ability to coordinate function.

In the 1970's two major developments  occurred in chiropractic. one involved a math teacher, the other research on manipulation and lower back pain.

A math teacher named Donald Harrison lived in a part of the country where the math teachers were paid less than the  garbage collectors  took a job in a lumber mill and hurt his back.  He set up camp on the couch being ornery too everyone in sight for about two weeks at which point his wife could not stand him anymore.  She and her friend dragged him kicking and screaming, "I don't want to see one of those quacks" to her friends chiropractor.  He got better, then he enrolled in chiropractic college.  I pity his professors, because he asked the kind of questions only a math teacher would think of.  It went something like this:

When a professor explained that ideal spinal alignment was straight up and down vertical from the front view and had smooth flowing curves from the side view and which directions the curves went and asked,  "...any questions?  Mr. Harrison?" 

"About those curves.  should they be circular or elliptical? And if eliptical, what should the ratio be between the major and minor radii of rotation, and how do we know that?  And if we drew lines tangential to the posterior body margins of the vertebrae at each level and measured the angles of the intersecting lines, what would they ideally be, and how do we know that?  And when we encounter a patient significantly out of alignment, do we have the technology to reliably improve their alignment on follow up x-rays?"  The professor did not have a single answer, but Don was relentless and without pity.  "What do you mean you don't know?  You're trying to improve alignment and you don't even know what your aiming for?  The Professor replied, "We have a general idea."  

"General idea?"  Don exploded.   "You could blindfold me, point me towards a dartboard and I would have a general idea where the board is.  what are the odds of my getting a bull's eye?"  That was a prescient question.  In chiropractic, the bull's eye is often referred to as the chiropractic miracle.  Patients getting better from pain, numbness, weakness and tingling is every day chiropractic.  When kids stop wetting the bed, people no longer need inhalers or antihistamines for their asthma or allergies, people told you will never have babies have them, no longer need their blood pressure medication, get over attention deficit disorder, adults no longer have to get up at night to urinate, those are often referred to as chiropractic miracles.  (Super chiropractic miracles also rarely  occur such as being adjusted out of a coma or into speedy remission from a "terminal" cancer.)  More about this later.

Donald Harrison began researching the answers to his questions before graduating, continued as he set up his practice, then went back to school, got his Phd. in mathematics, his MS in mechanical engineering and brought some of the faculty from those departments into his research along with other chiropractors who wanted better results.  he formed a new discipline called chiropractic biophysics (CBP).  Before retiring a couple of years ago from research and teaching he and others who joined him (including his son Dr. Deed Harrison) Dr. Donald Harrison et al. had answered all the questions he asked as a student, published them in the top research publications in the world such as Spine, the journal of Orthopedic and Joint Disorders and many others, achieved every type of chiropractic miracle and super chiropractic miracle by using improved science.  CBP is now the most published technique in chiropractic. 

In the 1970's a research article was published with a headline stating, Spinal Manipulation Effective in the Treatment of Acute Low Back Pain.  Some of the chiropractic colleges were interested in grant money to study manipulation and treating pain.  Keep in mind, Palmer had said, "It is not the job of the chiropractor to cure anything, but to remove interference from the body's ability to heal itself."   The purpose of chiropractic is to remove interference by optimizing spinal alignment, not to treat any condition be it back pain or deafness.  Not everyone was happy with the change of focus from removal of interference with the body's innate healing ability to treatment of one condition: pain. .  Some of the colleges, trying to go along to get along, stopped teaching and talking about subluxations and adjustments and started teaching about manipulation and segmental joint dysfunction.  Mostly how to loosen stiff joints.  Some started telling students, "Don't try to correct alignment, it's too hard.   A joint can be manipulated in any direction, but only adjusted towards proper alignment.  

My Alma Matter was one such school.  There were a few professors who resisted this trend, but they were considered on the fringe, tolerated for traditions sake.  It was certainly not part of the core curriculum.  In my senior year, one of the administrators and a practicing chiropractor came into our classroom and said, "I'd like to speak to you about chiropractic miracles.  On average, each of you will experience one or two of them in the course of your careers.  When they occur, don't try to understand why.  Just thank God and go on with your practice.  To be continued.