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Spinal manipulation
is an ancient art. The earliest written account of it has been found
in a Chinese document, the Kon Fou, dated around 2700BC. The early
fathers of medicine, the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, practised
spinal manipulation and preached the importance of the spine in relation
to health. As well as using manual adjustment, Hippocrates is credited
with inventing a mechanical device for stretching the spine by traction;
he also recommended sitting on patients if necessary!
| Chiropractic
began in 1895 when Harvey Lillard, janitor of the |
Ryan Building, where Daniel David Palmer, a practitioner of
'magnetic healing' had his office. Palmer began questioning
Lillard about his condition, Lillard explained that 17 years
before he had been stooping when he felt something give in his
back; almost immediately, he'd lost his hearing.
On examining Lillard, he found a painful and prominent vertebra
in his upper spine. Yes, said Lillard, that was the place that
had hurt when he'd lost his hearing. Palmer asked him to lie
face down on the treatment table, and exerted an energetic manual
thrust on the vertebra in question. |
DD
Palmer
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Shortly afterwards, Lillard announced that he was beginning to hear
again. The first adjustment had been made and chiropractic was born.
Palmer had a theory
and later wrote that the event was no accident; the adjustment was
accomplished with an object in view, the result expected was obtained.
There was nothing crude about this adjustment; it was specific. He
had in fact been working towards this for some years.
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