Trick or Treatment—The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine (Electronic book text)

Palmer believed that he had stumbled upon a new medical technique. He was so convinced that chiropractic therapy offered a novel approach to healthcare that he opened the Palmer School of Chiropractic in 1897 in Davenport, Iowa. His reputation and charisma rapidly attracted many students to the school, where the main teaching resource was a textbook entitled The Chiropractor’s Adjuster, written by Palmer himself. This outlined every detail of his chiropractic therapy in its 1,000 pages, including how Palmer came to name his new treatment: ‘Rev. Samuel H. Weed of Portland selected for me at my request two Greek words, cheir and praxis, meaning when combined “done by hand”, from which I coined the word “chiro-practic”.’

Perhaps the most surprising feature of Palmer’s chiropractic therapy was its ambition. Having allegedly treated deafness and a heart condition by realigning the spine of his patients, he was confident that spinal manipulation could deal with all the ills of the human race. For Palmer, chiropractic therapy was not primarily about treating back problems. He explicitly wrote: ‘Ninety-five per cent of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae.’

This statement might seem shocking to us, but it made perfect sense to Palmer, who viewed the spine as key to the health of the entire body. He was keenly aware that the spine provides the highway that connects the brain and the spinal cord to the rest of the body by way of the peripheral nervous system. Hence, according to Palmer, displaced vertebrae would impact on particular neural pathways, negatively influence the organs connected via this pathway and thereby cause diseases. Consequently, if chiropractors realigned these displaced vertebrae then they could cure diseases: not just deafness and heart disease, but also everything from measles to sexual dysfunction.

This is already an extraordinary claim, and it appears even more bizarre when phrased in Palmer’s own language. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Palmer used the term ‘subluxation’ to describe a displacement in the spine, which resulted in a blockage of the body’s so-called ‘innate intelligence’. He developed a theory whereby innate intelligence acted as the body’s guiding energy, carrying both metaphysical and physiological significance. This is why he believed that blocking its flow seriously disrupted the body’s harmony and could lead to all manner of diseases.

It is important to stress that the term ‘innate intelligence’ is utterly meaningless beyond Palmer’s unique view of the human body. On the other hand, the term ‘subluxation’ is used in orthodox medicine, but has a meaning that has nothing to do with blocking innate intelligence. If a doctor talks about ‘subluxation’, it simply means a partial dislocation of any joint, such as a twisted ankle. In short, Palmer’s ‘innate intelligence’ and ‘subluxation’ carry no scientific significance.

Figure 5

A chiropractic chart shows how each vertebra relates to different parts of the body and is responsible for various ailments. This simplified chart shows the ailments corresponding to only some of the vertebra. For example, a misaligned third lumber vertebra could cause bladder problems, and realignment could cure this. When Palmer cured his first two patients, he presumably manipulated the fourth cervical vertebra and the second thoracic vertebra, as these are linked with hearing loss and heart problems.

The concept of innate intelligence was so strange that it seemed as if chiropractic therapy was not only a new medical doctrine, but also a new religion. Indeed, Palmer viewed God as the Universal Intelligence, guiding the totality of existence, which meant that innate intelligence represented God’s guiding influence within the human body. In Palmer’s own words, ‘I am the founder of chiropractic in its science, in its art, in its philosophy and in its religious phase’. He even likened himself to ‘Christ, Mohamed, Jo. Smith [founder of the Latter Day Saints movement], Mrs. Eddy [founder of the Christian Science church], Martin Luther and other[s] who have founded religions.’