History

D.D. Palmer

The birth of chiropractic can be traced back to the year 1895, or more precisely, the 18th of September, 1895 in Davenport, Iowa. With his discovery, Daniel David Palmer (D.D. Palmer) gave rise to a revolution in how health was viewed.

Mr. Harvey Lillard, a caretaker in Dr. Palmer's building, told him one day how he had lost part of his hearing:

17 years prior, he was working in a physically contorted position when he heard a "popping" sound in his spine. After a few days, he had almost completely lost his hearing. Dr. Palmer examined him and found a vertebrae that was clearly displaced. After he had repositioned the bone, Harvey Lillard's hearing improved instantly, and within a week it was almost completely normal. 17 years in silence were over.

With that, chiropractic was born. Palmer christened his new discovery "Chiropracitc" derived from the Greek "cheir" and "praktikis" which roughly means "done with the hand".

B.J. Palmer

D.D.'s son B.J. continued his father's work. It was B.J. who developed the theory and art of chiropractic, which formed the foundation of today's therapy.

Even though the procedure of “bringing bone back into position” had already been practiced instinctively for thousands of years, B.J. Palmer was the first to recognize that these displaced bones lead to a dysfunction in the nervous system and can affect the function of the entire body.

He based this on the fact that the body is controlled by the brain and the nervous system. A multitude of information is transmitted by the nervous system every second in order to control every single cell and fiber of the body.

The spinal cord forms the “information highway” over which information is transported. Palmer discovered that the bones of the spinal column protect the spinal cord and can exert pressure on the spinal cord and the spinal nerves when they come out of their intended position.

This pressure can lead to misinformation or an interruption of the information flow from the brain.

A misaligned vertebrae, and the nerve damage caused by it, is referred to as subluxation. These subluxations ultimately lead to decreased functionality of the body since the nervous system's “communication” can't unfold. The body preserves health poorly, functions and operates poorly, and expresses its innate vitality less and less.

B.J. Palmer turned chiropractic into a modern science and developed the sophisticated art of alignment. The objective localization and analysis of vertebral subluxations as well as finding evidence of changes that occur by subluxation and their correction were his number one goal.

Today

These days, chiropractic is an academic occupation, a science and an art form, which does not address individual illnesses, but rather vertebral subluxations and their impact on the body. Chiropractic, as a part of primary health care, recognizes and respects the body's pursuit of preserving health. Chiropractic has spawned a wide variety of sophisticated techniques and approaches for correcting subluxations. Chiropractic defines health as far more than only the mere absence of illness – health is ideal functioning in every aspect of life.