The Father Of Chiropractic: Daniel David Palmer

Daniel David Palmer was born in 1845 near Toronto

, Canada to Katherine McVay and Thomas Palmer. He was a jack of many trades including beekeeping, school teacher and grocery store owner. He held an interest in various health ideas of the time including spiritualism and magnetic healing. When he was twenty he moved with his family to the United States and worked as a magnetic healer in Davenport, Iowa.

He was able to heal a deaf janitor that had a palpable lump on this back caused by stooping and bending in his cleaning profession. Daniel was able to cure the mans deafness by aligning the back and restoring the nerve flow. This was the first successful chiropractic procedure which quickly lead Daniel or D.D. as he was known to open the Palmer School of chiropractic in 1897. by 1902 he had graduated 15 chiropractors, but he was prosecuted under the new medical arts law of Iowa for practicing medicine without a license and served 17 days in jail before consented to pay the fine. Shortly thereafter, he sold the school to his son B.J. Palmer and moved to the west coast where he founded chiropractic schools in Oklahoma, California and Oregon.

Unfortunately things were often bitter and tense between father and son about the direction chiropractic should be taken. Sadly it has been reported that D.D. died from injuries inflicted by his son BJ when he was allegedly stuck by his son while marching in the founders day parade in Davenport in August 1913. D.D. died two months later at his home in Los Angeles, California. The death certificate reads typhoid as the cause of death but many believed it was due to the injuries sustained in the automobile accident.

D.D. is the father of Chiropractic and dedicated his life to that end. He has been quoted as saying, "A subluxated vertebra... is the cause of 95 percent of all diseases... The other five percent it caused by displaced joints other than those of the vertebral column."

Chiropractors of today owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Palmer for paving the way. Chiropractic clinics can be found in every neighborhood and city in America, from Atlanta to American Fork, chiropractic practices are alive and well thanks to Mr. Palmers undaunting believe in the system.

by: Art Gib

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