A Brief History of Chiropractic Care
A really, really long time ago in Davenport Iowa over 100 years ago around September 18th 1895, there was this guy named Daniel David Palmer but all his friends called him DeeDee for short.
Anyway. He is the founder of this thing that we now know is chiropractic.
There was this guy that worked in the building that Dr. Palmer worked in. He was like the maintenance guy there, and his name was Harvey Lillard. The thing about Harvey was that he couldn’t hear out of his right ear. The guy had been deaf in his right ear for like 17 years. That’s a really long time to be deaf.
Anyway, Harvey told Dr. Palmer that 17 years prior he was working and stooped over to pick up a bucket when he heard a pop in his neck and shortly afterward he lost his hearing.
So DeeDee being a very well educated man and all started putting two and two together, and he thought to himself… “If Harvey heard a loud pop in his neck right before he lost his hearing maybe that loud pop and his neck was a spinal bone popping out of place and if the bone is out of place. It could be interfering with his auditory nerve (the nerve that goes in your ear). And that could be what’s causing Harvey’s hearing loss”.
So DeeDee asked Harvey if he could feel around his neck and Harvey said yeah sure do whatever you need to. So DeeDee started feeling around Harvey’s neck and ended up finding a very prominent lump in his neck muscles, and he could feel it was hard as a bone. When he pushed on it, Harvey was like Hey man that’s sore. That’s when DeeDee told Harvey’s theory. He thought that Harvey might have a bone out of place in his neck that might be interfering with the nerves that go to his ears causing his deafness, and since nerves control everything including how he touched, taste, smell, see and hear that interference might be causing Harvey’s hearing problem.
So DeeDee asked Harvey can I push on the lump in your neck and try to fix it? At first, Harvey was scared because it was already kind of sore just from DeeDee barely touching it. But after about 30 minutes of DeeDee trying to persuade Harvey that it might get him his hearing back, Harvey finally agreed to let DeeDee push on the lump.
Harvey laid down on a bench, and DeeDee stood above him and put his hands directly on the lump on Harvey’s neck, and with one swift movement, Deedee pushed down on the lump in Harvey’s neck, and they both heard a loud pop. Just like the one that Harby heard when he first lost his hearing.
Within minutes Harvey heard something that he hadn’t heard out of his right ear and over 17 years. The sound of horses hooves claps clapping in the street. (Remember this was 1895). Harvey could hear again!
Word spread fast, and before he knew it, people were talking about what happened over at Dr. Palmer’s office, and all sorts of people were flocking there to see if Dr. Palmer could push on their spines and make them better too.
This new treatment of health problems needed a name. So after much consideration, Didi called it chiropractic which in Greek means done by hand.