HISTORY OF CHIROPRACTIC:
The history books tell us that therapeutic
manipulation has been in use since the
beginning of recorded time in some form
or another. The earliest references can
be seen in the ancient Chinese Kong
Fou document written around 2700 B.C.
Hippocrates, the acknowledged “Father of Medicine,” wrote many books on healing.
One of them was Manipulation and Importance to Good Health and another one
was On Setting Joints by Leverage. He said, “Get knowledge of the spine, for this
is the requisite for many diseases.” Hippocrates taught that the highest good can
be found in removing the cause of disease. He wrote, “Nature must heal; the
physician can only remove the obstruction.” In his teachings, Hippocrates
stipulated that the body tends to heal itself and it is the responsibility of the
doctor to help nature do that very thing.
Herodicus was known to cure various diseases by correcting abnormalities of the
spine by using therapeutic exercises and with manipulations with his hands.
Claudius Galen was the first to teach the proper positions and relations of the
vertebrae and the spinal column. Galen was also the first to describe the cranial
nerves and the sympathetic nervous system. He is documented to have corrected
a paralysis of the right hand of Eudemus, who was a noted Roman scholar, by
adjusting the cervical (neck) vertebrae that were out of alignment and interfering
with the normal nerve communication to the scholar’s hand. This event earned
him the title, “Prince of Physicians.” Galen advised his students to “Look to the
nervous system as the key to maximum health.”
Dr. Palmer decided to try and help the janitor. He placed his hands on the janitor’s
spine as the janitor lay face down on Dr. Palmer’s treatment table. Dr. Palmer could
feel that the janitor’s spinal vertebrae (the bones that make up the spine) were not
in their proper place in the man’s upper back. One of those bones, in fact, was
grossly misaligned. Dr. Palmer figured that if the misaligned bone was put back
into its proper place, the janitor’s spinal cord and nerve roots would be freed from
compression and pressure and could do their jobs properly. Dr. Palmer hoped to
restore function to the compressed nerves. Dr. Palmer knew that the body has an
innate, or inborn, power to heal itself (an example of this is when you experience
a cut to your finger – you see swelling, redness, bleeding and clotting, then scab-
bing and scarring, all done without any conscious help from you). Dr. Palmer
believed that in order for the body to be able to heal itself, a nervous system that
works at optimum levels is absolutely necessary.
Dr. Palmer carefully put his hands on the janitor’s misaligned vertebra and pulsed.
The misaligned bone clicked back into its proper place and, over a period of time
with several more adjustments to the spine, the janitor’s hearing was restored in
his previously deaf ear. Modern Chiropractic was born.
In his first book, Dr. Palmer wrote, “I am not the first person to replace subluxated
vertebrae, but I do claim to be the first person to replace displaced vertebrae by
using the spinous and transverse processes as levers… and to develop the
philosophy and science of chiropractic adjustments.”
Today, chiropractic is recognized the world over as the largest form of alternative
health care.
In 1895, a magnetic healer named Dr. D.D. Palmer
asked the janitor in his office building what had caused
the man’s deafness in one ear. The janitor replied that
the trouble started 17 years previously when he had
suffered a trauma to his upper back. Ever since then,
his hearing had decreased until it was completely gone
in one ear.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients
in the care of the human frame…” Thomas Edison
