The word ‘chiropractic’ comes from the Greek words cheir (meaning ‘hand’) and praktos (meaning ‘done’), i.e. Done by Hand.
Chiropractic is not a service, its not a lifestyle, its a choice. A choice to listen to your body, what the body craves, where the tension from daily life resides and hides in the body. Chiropractic is the means to find where the tension settles in the body and the tool to use as a means to help the body release the tension.
A Little History Of Chiropractic:
Early Chiropractic was discovered when D.D, a Canadian-born man and Harvey Lillard, an African-American meeting in the Heartland of America. That first adjustment to Harvey’s spine from D.D. birthed the world’s largest non-invasive, drug-free field of health care that now reaches every corner of the globe and touches the lives of millions each day. D.D examined Harvey, a janitor working in the same building, who had become deaf 17 years prior after he felt something “give” in his back. D.D examined the area and gave a crude “adjustment” to what was felt to be a misplaced vertebra in the upper back. The janitor then observed that his hearing improved.
After that first adjustment, D.D went on to develop the first School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1897called Palmer Chiropractic College.
D.D’s son, B.J. Palmer, is considered the developer of chiropractic because he took what his father founded and developed it into a thriving profession to serve the sick. B.J. was a meticulous researcher, prolific writer, sound philosopher, prosperous businessman, and devout teacher. Many of his scientific discoveries promoted the notion that the upper cervical adjust- ment was the most important a person could receive. In fact, upper cervical adjusting was the only technique taught at Palmer Chiropractic College for almost twenty years!
B.J. was an ardent promoter of vitalism and fought against the “horrors of medicine” that were common in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. Vitalism is the premise that the body has the innate ability to live, heal, and thrive without the need to mechanically or chemically alter the function of the body.
The distinction between vitalism and mechanism is actually very profound. One states that the body is beautifully created and, given the best circumstances, has the ability to heal and adapt. The other says the human body is a machine that can be tinkered with, like a car, and that external intelligence knows more about how a person should function than the innate intelligence of the person’s body. The mechanistic (or allopathic approach) has you pop an aspirin for a headache. Vitalism looks to the innate expression of intelligence, through matter, to correct the cause of the headache and not merely cover up the symptoms.