Daniel David Palmer

Daniel David Palmer

Daniel David Palmer or D.D. Palmer (March 7, 1845 – October 20, 1913) was the founder of chiropractic. Palmer was born in Pickering, Ontario and raised in the southern Ontario area, where he received his education.

In 1865 Palmer moved to the United States, and around 1880 took up magnetic healing in Davenport, Iowa. After returning to Davenport, in 1895 Palmer met Harvey Lillard, a janitor whose hearing was impaired. Palmer claimed the man's hearing was restored after manipulating his spine.

Palmer developed the theory that mis-alignment of the bones in the body was the basic underlying cause of all "dis-ease" and the majority of these mis-alignments were in the spinal column. He regarded chiropractic as partly religious in nature. In 1897 he opened the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport and started teaching his techniques. Lawsuits followed, and after brief incarceration, Palmer sold the school to his son, B. J. Palmer. B. J. greatly expanded the school and the general knowledge of chiropractic. Palmer moved west, opening several new schools in Oklahoma, California, and Oregon. His relationship with his son was strained after this point.

Palmer died in Los Angeles in 1913 of typhoid fever. His death has remained controversial due to the relationship with his son and the school he founded.

Biography

Palmer was born in Pickering, Ontario, to Katherine McVay and Thomas Palmer. At age twenty he moved to the United States with his family. Palmer held various jobs as a beekeeper, school teacher, and grocery store owner, and had an interest in the various health philosophies of his day, such as magnetic healing, and Spiritualism. Palmer practiced magnetic healing beginning in the mid-1880s in Burlington and Davenport, Iowa.

Palmer worked as a magnetic healer in Davenport, Iowa. His office was located in the South Putnam Building of the Ryan Block, at the intersection of Second and Brady Streets. While working, he encountered the building's janitor, Harvey Lillard, who Palmer discovered had a palpable lump in his back. Lillard's hearing was severely impaired and Palmer theorized that the lump and his hearing deficits were related. Palmer then treated Lillard and claimed to have successfully restored his hearing, a claim which was influential in Chiropractic history.

His theories revolved around the concept that altered nerve flow was the cause of all disease, and that misaligned spinal vertebrae had an effect on the nerve flow. He postulated that restoring these vertebrae to their proper alignment would restore health.

"A subluxated vertebra ... is the cause of 95 percent of all diseases ... The other five percent is caused by displaced joints other than those of the vertebral column."

By 1902 the school had graduated 15 chiropractors. In 1906, Palmer was prosecuted under the new medical arts law in Iowa for practicing medicine without a license, and chose to go to jail instead of paying the fine. As a result, he spent 17 days in jail, but then elected to pay the fine. Shortly thereafter, he sold the school of chiropractic to his son, B. J. Palmer. With the help of an arbitration committee, the deal was settled for $2,196.79, various books, and some specimens from the osteological collection. As soon as the sale of the school was finalized, D.D. Palmer went to the West Coast, where he helped to found chiropractic schools in Oklahoma, California, and Oregon.

The relationship with his son B.J. was tenuous and often bitter, especially after the sale of his school. Their subsequent disagreements regarding the direction of the emerging field of chiropractic were evident in D.D. Palmer's writings. Even the circumstances surrounding his death were postulated to be attributable to B.J. Court records reflect that during a founders day parade in Davenport in August 1913, D.D. was marching on foot and was allegedly struck from behind by a car driven by B.J. Others denied he was struck by B.J.'s vehicle. He died in Los Angeles, California on October 20, 1913. The official cause of death was typhoid fever, though some believe it was the consequence of his injuries. The courts exonerated B.J. of any responsibility for his father's death. Chiropractic historian Joseph C. Keating, Jr. has described the attempted patricide of D.D. Palmer as a "myth" and "absurd on its face" and cites an eyewitness who recalled that D.D. was not struck by B.J.'s car, but rather, had stumbled.

Osteopathic and chiropractic medicine

In 1870 Palmer was '"probably" a student of metaphysics, became a student of science in 1890 while practicing magnetic healing and after "discovering" chiropractic in 1895 attempted to merge science and metaphysics. In 1896, DD Palmer's first descriptions and underlying philosophy of chiropractic was strikingly similar to Andrew Still's principles of osteopathy established a decade earlier. Both described the body as a "machine" whose parts could be manipulated to produce a drugless cure. Both professed the use of spinal manipulation on joint dysfunction to improve health; chiropractors dubbed this manipulable lesion "subluxation" which interfered with nervous system whereas osteopaths dubbed the spinal lesion "somatic dysfunction" which affected the circulatory system. Palmer drew further distinctions by noting that he was the first to use short-lever manipulative techniques using the spinous process and transverse processes as mechanical levers to spinal dysfunction/subluxation. Soon after, osteopaths began an American wide campaign proclaimed that chiropractic was a bastardized form of osteopathy and sought licensure to differenti Although Palmer initially denied being trained by osteopathic medicine founder A.T. Still, in 1899 in papers held at the Palmer College of Chiropractic he wrote:

"Some years ago I took and expensive course in Electropathy, Cranial Diagnosis, Hydrotherapy, Facial Diagnosis. Later I took Osteopathy [which] gave me such a measure of confidence as to almost feel it unnecessary to seek other sciences for the mastery of curable disease. Having been assured that the underlying philosophy of chiropractic is the same as that of osteopathy...Chiropractic is osteopathy gone to seed."

Palmer's mysticism

D.D. Palmer was a man with subjective and personal religious beliefs. As an active spiritist, he said he "received chiropractic from the other world" from a deceased medical physician named Dr. Jim Atkinson.According to B.J. Palmer, "Father often attended the annual Mississippi Valley Spiritualists Camp Meeting where he first claimed to receive messages from Dr. Jim Atkinson on the principles of chiropractic." Such messages were normally received during seances, but Palmer claimed to have received them through "inspiration".

Palmer's magnetism

Like other drugless healers of the era, Palmer practised as a magnetic healer prior to founding chiropractic. Palmer sought to combine magnetic, scientific and vitalistic viewpoints as a drugless healer. In his first text The science of chiropractic: its principles and adjustments published in 1906, Palmer recalls:

''|n 1886 I began as a business. Although I practiced under the name of magnetic, I did not slap or rub, as others. I questioned many M.D.s as to the cause of disease. I desired to know why such a person had asthma, rheumatism, or other afflictions. I wished to know what differences there were in two persons that caused one to have certain symptoms called disease which his neighbor living under the same conditions did not have...In my practice of the first 10 years which I named magnetic, I treated nerves, followed and relieved them of inflammation. I made many good cures, as many are doing today under a similar method."

Death

The 2008 book Trick or Treatment states that in 1913, B.J. Palmer ran over his father, D.D. Palmer, during a homecoming parade at the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. Weeks later D.D. Palmer died in Los Angeles. The official cause of death was recorded as typhoid fever. The book Trick or Treatment indicated "it seems more likely that his death was a direct result of injuries caused by his son." There was speculation that it was not an accident, but instead a case of attempted patricide. They had become bitter rivals over the leadership of chiropractic. B.J. Palmer resented his father for the way he treated his family, stating that his father beat three of his children with straps and was so much involved in chiropractic that "he hardly knew he had any children". D.D. Palmer's attending physicians were persuaded to change their opinions about the main cause of death. D.D. claimed that his son B.J. struck him with his car. Chiropractic historian Joseph C. Keating, Jr. has described the attempted patricide of D.D. Palmer as a "myth" and "absurd on its face" and cites an eyewitness who recalled that D.D. was not struck by B.J.'s car, but rather, had stumbled. He also says that "Joy Loban, DC, executor of D.D.'s estate, voluntarily withdrew a civil suit claiming damages against B.J. Palmer, and that several grand juries repeatedly refused to bring criminal charges against the son."

Quotes

The following quotes are from D.D. Palmer's book, The Chiropractor's Adjuster (also called The Text-Book of the Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic). The book was published in 1910 by the Portland Printing House Company of Portland, Oregon, and reprinted in 1966 by his grandson, David D. Palmer, 1966.

• Dis-ease: "The kind of dis-ease depends upon what nerves are too tense or too slack."
• Chiropractic for intellectual abnormalities: "Chiropractors correct abnormalities of the intellect as well as those of the body."
• Life and Religion: "I have answered the time-worn question — what is life?": "The dualistic system — spirit and body — united by intellectual life — the soul — is the basis of this science of biology"
• "There can be no healing without Teaching ..."
• "There is a vast difference between treating effects and adjusting the causes."

Works

• The Chiropractor's Adjuster (also called The Text-Book of the Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic), Daniel David Palmer, Portland Printing House, 1910 (reprint: 1966).
• The Chiropractor (Los Angeles: Beacon Light Printing Co., c1914).

References

Notes

• Some time after his death, Palmer was mistakenly believed to have been born in Port Perry, about 30 km north-east of Audley. This information remains widespread today. Palmer did live in the town at some point, and appears to have received much of his schooling there. Today there is a statue of Palmer in the eponymous Palmer Park, which simply states he was "raised" there. Some of the confusion surrounding Palmer's early life can be seen in examples like Joseph Keating's "D.D. Palmer's Lifeline", which includes statements that "DD's father, Thomas Palmer, is born in Port Perry" in 1824 - but this was before the town existed. The same author would later correct the record in "The Palmers and the Port Perry Myths".

Citations

Bibliography

• Paul Arculus, "A Pickering Son: Daniel David Palmer", Pathmaster, Pickering Township Historical Society, Spring 2004, pp. 4–6

External links

• Chiropractic History Archives: D.D. Palmer
• D.D. Palmer's Lifeline