• Smith JC

• Chiropractic
• Chiropractic / history
• Manipulation, Spinal / history
• Open Access Document
• Palmer, Daniel David, 1845-1913

Narrative abstract: A brief history is given of early manipulation in the form of bone-setting, deriving from Britain, to demonstrate the sophistication of DD Palmer’s methods of spinal manipulation which he named Chiropractic.

Palmer not only introduced the use of the spinous process as a lever for his spinal corrections but identified and reported a range of effects gathered as neuroimmunity and neuroimmunology to form his Chiropractic brand of neurobiology. It is shown that Palmer’s ideas mirrored those of Cannon, credited with the discovery of the stress response around 1915 and heralded as the father of psychosomatic medicine, and of Koch, one of the founders of bacteriology.

The distinction of Chiropractic from Osteopathy is given, along with a discussion on the opprobrium of medicine as represented by the American Medical Association, described as the 4th arm of American government with its plan to ‘contain and eliminate’ Chiropractic.

Author keywords: Chiropractic - Competition - Containment - DD Palmer - Bone-setter

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