The Birth of Chiropractic

The birth of chiropractic begins with Daniel David Palmer, who performed the first chiropractic adjustment on Harvey Lillard on September 18th in 1895 (129 years ago)!

D.D. Palmer, a magnetic healer from Davenport, Iowa, adjusted the spine of Harvey Lillard, a janitor who had reportedly been deaf for 17 years. Lillard claimed to have regained his hearing after the adjustment.

Palmer believed that misalignments of the spine, or "subluxations," interfered with the body's natural flow of innate intelligence, which he believed was responsible for health.

In 1906, Palmer was convicted of practicing medicine without a license and went to jail. Many other chiropractors were also sent to jail for the same "crime" but by then the movement had already caught on and people all over the US were being helped by chiropractic.

In 1909, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned Abraham Flexner to visit medical schools and write a report on the status of medical education in the United States and Canada in order to consolidate medicine and improve research. Apparently, the report was so attractively presented, that the Rockefeller Foundation decided to jump aboard.

So now the wealthy donors could avoid taxation, set themselves up as authority in the trusting public eye as well as enhance profits from treatment they had invested in. (Sound familiar?)

So with the Flexner Report in hand, a healthy nod from the American Medical Association (AMA) and its close partner, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), along with the financial backing of Carnegie and Rockefeller, medical education reform was in full swing.

The only real threat to their monopoly and profit was...

Chiropractic!

So let the witch hunts begin! Roughly 672 chiropractors were jailed for practicing without a license in the early 1900's and they set out on a massive smear campaign against chiros calling them "rabid dogs that need to be put down".

As a result, medical doctors typically do not directly refer to chiropractors and people to this day say things like; "I don't believe in chiropractic."

Hmmmmm, where did those beliefs come from? I wonder.

Make sure you thank or hug a chiropractor today!!

"Doctored" is a Great documentary: WATCH IT HERE

Contact our West Dundee IL chiropractors today to learn more.