First chiropractic adjustment - September 18, 1895

On this day in 1895, Daniel David Palmer performed what's considered the first chiropractic adjustment. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi everyone, Welcome to This Day in History Class,
where we uncover the remnants of history every day. Today
is September. The day was September eight. Daniel David Palmer,

(00:29):
a spiritualist and magnetic healer who had held several jobs,
performed the first chiropractic adjustment on a man named Harvey Lillard.
Palmer immigrated from Canada to the US in eighteen sixty.
In the States, he worked as a teacher, ran a
fruit and berry nursery and apiary, and operated a grocery store.

(00:52):
He read a lot about anatomy, physiology, neurology, and pathology,
but he also took an interest in spiritualism and alternative medicine.
Spiritualism was a religious movement that centered on the belief
that spirits of the dead communicate with the living. While
he was in Iowa teaching, Palmer learned magnetic healing from

(01:13):
Poulcaster in the city of Autumbwa. Magnetic healing is an
alternative medicine practice based on the claim that static magnetic
fields from permanent magnets placed close to the body can
effectively heal various ailments. Magnetic healing is considered a pseudoscience.
In September of eighteen eighty six, Palmer opened an office

(01:34):
in Burlington and began to practice magnetic healing. The next year,
he moved to Davenport and opened a magnetic healing office there.
Around this time, he became outspoken about his opposition to vaccination, drugs,
and vivisection. On September eight he gave Harvey Lillard, a

(01:55):
black elevator operator in Custodian, his first chiropractic adjustment. Palmer
wrote that Lillard had been deaf for seventeen years. When
he asked what the cause of his deafness was, Lillard
said when he bent into a cramp stooping position, he
felt something give way in his back and immediately became deaf.

(02:15):
Palmer found in an examination that a vertebra was off
its normal position, and figured that Lillard's hearing would be
restored if he racked it into position by quote using
the spinest process as a lever. When he did that,
the man could reportedly here again. Palmer has told several
stories of how he supposedly cured Lillard of his deafness,

(02:37):
from a claim that he performed the adjustment in an elevator,
the one that he accidentally hit Lillard in the back.
Soon Palmer transitioned from magnetic healer to chiropractor. He initially
attributed his breakthrough in chiropractic to Jim Atkinson, a doctor
who had died years before, though he eventually began to

(02:57):
attribute the development as the culmination of his own knowledge
and experiences. Later, he created a journal called The Chiropractor.
After getting suggestions from Reverend Samuel Weed, a patient and
friend of his, Palmer coined the words chiropractic from the
Greek words meaning hand and done. In eight seven, Palmer

(03:19):
opened the Palmer School and Infirmary, later renamed the Palmer
School of Chiropractic. The first four students, including his son
b J, graduated in January of nineteen o two. The
next year, Palmer and his son formed an equal partnership.
Palmer proselytized chiropractic and was self aggrandizing beyond the questionable

(03:42):
legitimacy of his practices. He was engaged in other sketchy
activities related to his business. His advertising campaigns were over
the top, He faced lawsuits, and he had disagreements with
his son, whom he partnered with to run the Palmer
School of Chiropractic. In nineteen o six, Palmer was tried
and found guilty of practicing medicine without a license. Palmer

(04:06):
chose to do jail time rather than pay a fine,
and the property of the school and clinic was placed
in the name of b J's wife. Palmer's wife ended
up paying the fine after he spent some time in jail,
but b J would not let his father come back
to the school. Palmer sold his share of the school
to his son and moved to Oklahoma. He became affiliated

(04:29):
with chiropractic schools in Oklahoma, Oregon, and California before he
died in nineteen thirteen. B J. Palmer considered his father
the founder of chiropractic and himself the developer. B J
was president of the Palmer School of Chiropractic from nineteen
o six until his death in nineteen six one. Today,

(04:49):
chiropractic is considered a pseudo scientific alternative medicine. I'm Eves
Jeff Coote and hopefully you know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. Keep up with us
on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at T D I H C. Podcast,
We'll See You Tomorrow. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

(05:13):
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