This month the profession of Chiropractic celebrates its 115th birthday.
D.D. Palmer,The Founder of Chiropractic, gave the first chiropractic adjustment to Harvey Lillard on Sept 18,1895. Harvey owned the cleaning service that took care of the building where D.D. had a successful magnetic healing clinic. Harvey also suffered from deafness in one ear for many years. After learning that Harvey’s deafness came on after an injury to his spine, D.D. examined Harvey and found that one vertebrae was out of alignment with the rest of the spine.This coincided with the area of the spine that Harvey reported to have injured. D.D. figured that if he could restore the alignment of the spine he might be able to reverse the damage that caused Harvey’s deafness.
D.D. adjusted Harvey’s spine, he did regain his hearing, and thus began the profession of chiropractic.
Although a unique set of events aligned themselves to create the opportunity for Harvey and D.D. to meet, it was not all by accident. D.D. was in the right place at the right time to answer a question that had plagued him. As the story goes, D.D. often wondered why you can have two people that live in the same environment, breathing the same air, eating the same food and drinking the same water an done gets sick while the other doesn’t.
Ultimately he concluded that it is the internal environment that must be different from one individual to another. What controls our internal environment, our nervous system. So when D.D. adjusted Harvey he was able to start putting the pieces together. When there is stress and imbalance in the spine that affects the nervous system, this can lead to imbalance and ultimately disease in the body. D.D. never claimed to be the first person to come up with the idea of adjusting the spine to improve health, that idea goes back at least to the Egyptians.
However, he began the process of defining the science, art and philosophy of the profession we know as Chiropractic. So thank you D.D., Harvey and all the millions of chiropractors and chiropractic patients that have helped shape this great profession.
Happy Birthday Chiropractic.
“It’s not about back pain….its about your function.”
