It has been over 100 years since chiropractic was first introduced in the manner we know it today. More interesting than that is the fact that thousands of years ago people were using chiropractic principles. Historians found documents that describe tissue manipulation as early as 2700 B.C.

In the days of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, a breakthrough occurred when he linked spinal misalignment with ill health. He wrote over 70 books on health, including Manipulation and Importance to Good Health and On Setting of Joints by Leverage.

Hippocrates told his students to “get the knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases.” Unfortunately, with the fall of Rome in 476 A.D., most of his teachings were lost. By the looks of most of the 20th centuries medical philosophy it was also forgotten.

A unique healing philosophy was brought from Europe and introduced in the nineteenth century. This set the stage for one of the greatest health breakthroughs of our time.

Daniel David (D.D.) Palmer
In 1895 D.D. Palmer was credited with restoring the hearing of a janitor named Harvey Lillard. Palmer wrote that Lillard was so deaf that “he could not hear the racket of a wagon on the street or the ticking of a watch.” Palmer chatted with the janitor, examined him, found a vertebra out of whack, racked it into position and the man’s deafness disappeared. Palmer then announced that all diseases were caused by misaligned vertebrae.

More than one chiropractic historian has wondered how Palmer could have had a conversation with a deaf man.

Lillard wasn’t the first patient Palmer, a former grocer, and beekeeper had cared for. Before developing chiropractic, he worked as a magnetic healer in Burlington, Iowa. Magnetic healers claimed to be able to cure disease by transferring healing energy while touching or passing their hands over a patient. Palmer also dabbled in phrenology. Phrenologists believe there is a relationship between skull shape and both personality and intelligence.

He was also influenced by vitalism, Mesmerism and spiritualism, as were many 19th-century scientists. Vitalism, popular at the turn of the century in America, held that a vital force, distinct from the forces normally recognized by science, powered living organisms.

Palmer came to believe that a force, which he called Innate Intelligence, or just Innate, flowed through the spine and what he called sympathetic nerves. Palmer wrote, “(Innate) is a segment of that Intelligence which fills the universe, this universe, all wise, is metamerized, divided into metemeres as needed by individual beings.”

According to Palmer, human disease was the result of interference with the flow of Innate intelligence caused by subluxations, or misalignments of vertebra. It was known as the “Bone Out Of Place” theory.

Bartlett Joshua (B.J.) Palmer
His son B.J. Palmer came up with his own theory of chiropractic, called “The Hole in One” theory that posited that only the upper three cervical vertebrae need to be aligned. B.J. was also the salesman of the family and explained that at “a course in salesmanship goes along with [our students] training”.

The Palmers developed a close relationship with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, of Circus fame. B.J. made it understood that a performer in need of an adjustment could be treated by a chiropractor anywhere in the world, and B.J. would pay the bill himself. B.J. Palmer also boasted, “Our school is on a business, not a professional basis … We manufacture chiropractors… Give me a simple mind that thinks along single tracks, give me 30 days to instruct him, and that individual can go forth on the highways and byways and get more sick people well than the best, most complete, all around, unlimited medical education of any medical man who ever lived.” Many believe his flamboyant and outspoken nature began the rift that exists between the medical and chiropractic professions that still exist today.

D.D. came to believe that the body was not heated by blood, but by “calorific nerves”. In 1906 he taught that Innate Intelligence was a distinct personality inhabiting the body. In 1910 he said that increased vibrational impulses to the organs caused inflammation and that slack nerve tension caused hard tumors. He felt no need to subject his theories to the scientific method.

While medical science advanced beyond leeching, humours and phrenology in the early part of this century, and then made breakthrough after breakthrough (vaccines, antibiotics, nuclear medicine, hormone therapy), the Palmers and chiropractic held fast to 19th century ideas and mysticism more in tune with a world before electric lights and motorcars.

We are beginning to feel a shift back to these roots in the teachings of Drs. Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil. They speak lecture about following a health program to achieve your potential, rather than living life haphazardly and fighting disease and illness at it arises.