History of chiropractic

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The history of chiropractic began in 1895 when Daniel David Palmer of Iowa performed the first chiropractic adjustment on a partially deaf janitor, Harvey Lillard. While Lillard was working without his shirt on in Palmer's office, Lillard bent over to empty the trash can. Palmer noticed that Lillard had a vertebra out of position. He asked Lillard what happened, and Lillard replied, "I moved the wrong way, and I heard a 'pop' in my back, and that's when I lost my hearing." Palmer, who was also involved in many other natural healing philosophies, had Lillard lie face down on the floor and proceeded with the adjustment. The next day, Lillard told Palmer, "I can hear that rackets on the streets."^{[1][page needed]} This experience led Palmer to open a school of chiropractic two years later. Rev. Samuel H. Weed coined the word "chiropractic" by combining the Greek words cheiro (hand) and praktikos (doing or action).

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.^[2] In 1896, Palmer's first descriptions and underlying philosophy of chiropractic echoed Andrew Still's principles of osteopathy established a decade earlier.^[3] Both described the body as a "machine" whose parts could be manipulated to produce a drugless cure. Both professed the use of spinal manipulation on joint dysfunction/subluxation to improve health. Palmer distinguished his work by noting that he was the first to use short-lever HVLA (high velocity low amplitude) joint manipulation techniques using the spinous process and transverse processes as mechanical levers. He described the effects of chiropractic spinal manipulation as being mediated primarily by the nervous system.^[4]

Despite the similarities between chiropractic and osteopathy, the latter's practitioners sought to differentiate themselves by seeking licensure to regulate the profession, calling chiropractic a "bastardized form of osteopathy".^[3] In 1907 in a test of the new osteopathy law, a Wisconsin-based chiropractor was charged with practicing osteopathic medicine without a license. Practicing medicine without a license led to many chiropractors, including D.D. Palmer, being jailed.^[3] Ironically, Palmer's legal defence of chiropractic consisted of the first chiropractic textbook Modernized Chiropractic published in 1906, written by "mixer" chiropractors Longworthy, Smith, et al., whom Palmer despised. Although the chiropractors won their first test case in Wisconsin in 1907, prosecutions instigated by state medical boards became increasingly common and in many cases they were successful. In response, chiropractors conducted political campaigns to secure separate licensing statutes, eventually succeeding in all fifty states, from Kansas in 1913 to Louisiana in 1974.

Division within the profession has been intense, with "mixers" combining spinal adjustments with other treatments, and "straights" relying solely on spinal adjustments. A conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health in 1975 spurred the development of chiropractic research. The American Medical Association called chiropractic an "unscientific cult"^[5] and boycotted it until losing a 1987 antitrust case.^[6]: 34 For most of its existence, chiropractic has battled with mainstream medicine, sustained by antiscientific and pseudoscientific ideas such as subluxation.^[6]: p37 By the mid-1990s there was a growing scholarly interest in chiropractic.^{[6][page needed]}