When you think of chiropractors and what they do, you probably think of a guy that looks like this this fellow in the picture below. Back pain has been a staple of the profession for a long time. But what if I told you that the first patient was not treated for back pain? The fact is, he was a maintenance man in Davenport Iowa in the year 1895. He had become deaf 17 years earlier after bending over and feeling a “pop” in his neck. His name was Harvey Lillard.
He explained this incident to Dr. D.D. Palmer, who practiced in the same building. Dr. Palmer reasoned that the “pop” in Mr. Lillard’s neck happened at the same time as he became deaf, maybe he should examine his spine. After doing so, he found a bone that was subluxated or out of place. This bone was irritating the nerves around it. Dr. Palmer then asked if he could try to help Mr. Lillard by attempting to move the bone off the nerve.The patient agreed.
After a few days of working on this problem in his neck it felt much better, but the great thing is that Mr. Lillard experienced a return of his hearing! Dr. Palmer reasoned that the nerve centers that were effected by the subluxation of the spine in Mr. Lillard’s neck had compromised the function of the nerves that are involved with hearing. So when the nerve function was restored, so was the hearing.
A Growing Profession
Over the next hundred years, chiropractors would face many challenges as the word spread about the wonderful results people were having with their care. One of the biggest challenges came from the American Medical Association, which sought to eliminate the profession because they did not use drugs in practice and would have many patients that did not need drugs after beginning care. This fight went all the way to the Supreme Court When a chiropractor named Dr. Wilk sued the American Medical Association for secretly trying to eliminate the profession. He won that lawsuit, and now we are the largest drug free healing profession.
Modern Day Chiropractors
Through the years, chiropractors have developed new and improved ways of detecting and correcting vertebral subluxations in their patients. Many chiropractors use X-Ray and MRI in addition to physical examination procedures to determine the extent of damage in the spine and how best to treat the patient.
The goal of treatment though, is always the same. That is to restore the function of the nervous system so that the patient can better heal from the inside out.
Many patients come in with pain, or a condition such as headache, heart disease or cancer. The doctor does not treat the condition but seeks to restore nerve flow and balance to the body. This is real mind-body medicine, as it is correcting interferences with that all important relationship. Relief of symptoms is then just a natural side effect of chiropractic care.
Here at our office we treat patients from all over. Many from right here in Columbus Ohio and the surrounding areas of Westerville Ohio, Worthington Ohio, Delaware Ohio, Dublin Ohio, Lewis Center Ohio, Upper Arlington Ohio, and Hilliard Ohio. Feel free to call our office for an appointment at 614-436-3870 to see if we can help you!
Dr. B.J. Palmer on Chiropractors
We work with the subtle substance of the soul. We release the imprisoned impulses, a tiny rivulet of force, that emanates from the mind and flows over the nerves to the cells and stirs them to life. We deal with the magic power that transforms common food into living, loving, thinking clay; that robes the earth with beauty, and hues and scents the flowers with the glory of the air.
In the dim, dark distant long ago, when the sun first bowed to the morning star, this power spoke and there was life, it quickened the slime of the sea and the dust of the earth and drove the cell to union with its fellows in countless living forms… With tireless energy it blows the bubble of each individual life and then silently, relentlessly dissolves the form and absorbs the spirit into itself again.
And yet you ask “Can chiropractic cure appendicitis or the flu?” Have you more faith in a knife or a spoonful of medicine than in the power that animates the living world?
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