The+Fountainhead+of+Chiropractic,+D.D.+Palmer

Original Author: Leann Weiss, A&S195 SP11 Revision Author:
 * The Fountain Head of Chiropractic, D.D. Palmer **

“I am the Fountain Head of Chiropractic; it originated with me; my brain discovered its first principle; I gave it birth…There can be but one Fountain Head of Chiropractic, one primary source, one original…and that one is myself” - D.D. Palmer (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster”, 819).


 * The Man; the Fountain Head **

In 1865 Daniel David Palmer, notably called D.D., relocated from Ontario, Canada to the United States. After moving around the country for over a decade, he came to settle in Davenport, Iowa in 1977. Palmer made his entry into the healing business in 1886 when he started practicing magnetic healing. He set up his practice on the fourth floor of the Ryan building at the corner of Second Street and Brady Street in Davenport. D.D. remarked that he had always been a man who asked questions about the “whys” of science, disease, and pain. “I asked many M.D.s as to the cause of disease. I desired to know why such a person had afflictions…In my practice which I named magnetic I was fully aware that I was treating effects. What was the cause of those ailments is what I wanted to learn” (“The Chiropractor 1904” 8,9). It was during this time spent in magnetics that “the way was being prepared and the principles of chiropractic were being unfolded” (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 74). It was the work of nine years and a voracious desire to answer the question “why” that lead him to the discovery and development of a system that used hands to adjust the spinal column and other joints. These adjustments returned the body to its natural functionality, therefore allowing the body to heal itself. As stated by D.D., chiropractic is not a system of healing, rather “chiropractic done by hand… [compels] the body to do its own healing with its own forces (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 318, 320).


 * The Birth of an Idea **

In 1895 D.D. Palmer’s interaction with a janitor in the building in which he practiced brought about a concept of healing like no other before it. The janitor, Mr. Harvey Lillard had been deaf for seventeen years. Lillard described to D.D. that he had been in a “cramped, stooping position and felt something give in his back (Palmer, “The Chiropractor 1905” 10,11). As was customary in his magnetic healing practice, D.D. put hands on Lillard and in doing so he found a displaced vertebra. It was then that he came up with the theory that displaced vertebrae impinged upon nerves causing impulses [of pain] and decreased the normal functioning of those nerves. It was in this moment that Palmer came to the realization that adjusting the vertebrae would give relief of diseases. As D.D. phrased it, “That theory became a demonstrated fact a half hour later, then it was no longer a theory” (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 226). After explaining to Lillard that he could restore his hearing, D.D. convinced Lillard to become the first recipient of what is now called an adjustment. Lillard was given two dorsal vertebra adjustments and immediately following this his hearing was restored. Lillard said in an article written eight months later//,// that after those two adjustments he could hear very well, and that his hearing as of that date was still normal. D.D. recollected on his first adjustment with confidence as “not accidental and specific, so much that no Chiropractor has ever equaled it (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 18). The success of this adjustment lead D.D. to question himself about what he had learned from the first adjustment and if it was true for deafness, then perhaps it was true for other diseases. From that point D.D. began to increase his study of the functionality of bones, nerves and impulses in order to create the “art of adjusting vertebrae and the knowledge of every principle…included in the construction of the science”. The term chiropractic was coined to define this new knowledge by D.D. Palmer with the aid of Rev. Samuel Weed in 1996. The word was formed by combining the Greek words “cheir” meaning hand, and “practos” meaning done by hand, therefore “done by hand or hand practitioner” (“The Chiropractor 1897” 4).


 * Palmer is Chiropractic **

In June of 1896 D.D. applied for an Iowa corporate charter for the Palmer School of Magnetic Cure which would be located on Brady Street in Davenport, Iowa. In 1896 the previously stated school was incorporated as the Chiropractic School & Infirmary. Up until 1897 D.D. was not completely convinced that he was prepared to open up the field of chiropractic to be taught to others. However, in that year D.D. was involved in a near fatal train accident near Clinton Junction, Illinois. His son Bartlett Joshua Palmer pleaded with him, advocating that if D.D. had died that chiropractic would have died with him. Indeed this struck D.D. as accurate as he later stated that “Had I been snatched from earth-life it might have been a long time before the same combination of circumstances, combined with the same make-up of an individual, would evolve a science such as I saw in Chiropractic” (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 74). Therefore D.D. decided that he was “determined to teach the art and science to someone as fast as it unfolded” (74). In this school would be taught anatomy, osteology, neurology, arthrology, physiology and pathology in order to analyze and locate symptoms to determine which nerves were experiencing interference. Along with these studies, several subjects not offered in medical schools would be taught such as the arts of adjusting and of nerve tracing, otherwise called palpation. D.D. claimed that these “two branches are prerequisite to [a chiropractor’s success” (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 786). It was also described by D.D. as “vital” to study the innate, which as defined by the fountain head himself was the intelligence born with us that throughout our lives runs the “vital functions of the body with perfect precision” (“The Chiropractor’s Adjuster” 787).

The school had its first student in 1898. Enrollment was low and fluctuated over the next several years. In 1899 it increased to three students, two in 1900, five in 1901, and four in 1902. The school also went through several more name changes before finally becoming Palmer College of Chiropractic, which in the present, 2011, is the current name of the school. The first graduate of the school was D.D.’s son B.J. Palmer. B.J. took over the running of the Palmer School of Chiropractic after his graduation in October of 1902.


 * The Fountain Head Remembered **

On October 20, 1913, D.D. Palmer died in Los Angeles, California at the age of sixty-eight due to an illness following an injury that he had suffered six weeks prior. Following D.D.’s death, Joseph C. Keating, Jr. wrote “He gave birth to Chiropractic. It did not die with him…. he was our Father…long live D.D. Palmer” (“Fountain Head News” 1).


 * Works Cited **

Joseph C. Keating, Jr., Ph.D. “D.D. Palmer is dead, long live D.D. Palmer.” //Fountain Head News// 2.38 (1913). 1. Print. Lillard, Harvey. “Deaf Seventeen Years.” //The Chiropractic// 11.26 (1899): 1. Print. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Palmer, D.D. “Chiropractic History.” //The Chiropractor// 1.1 (1904): 8,9. Print. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Palmer, D.D. “Chiropractic.” //The Chiropractor, A Monthly Journal// 1.2 (1905): 10,11. Print. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Palmer, D.D. “Chiropractic.” //The Chiropractor// 9.18 (1897): 9. Print. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Palmer, D.D. "Chiro Workshop." //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The Chiropractor // 9.18 (1897): 4. Print. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Palmer, D.D. //The Chiropractor’s Adjuster: The Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic.// Portland. Portland Printing House Company. Print.

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