Religion of Chiropractic
Chiropractic is the most common form of alternative medicine in the United States today, but its origins stretch back to the popular healing subcultures of the nineteenth century. This book focuses on two of chiropractic's earliest founders, Daniel David (D. D.) Palmer and his son, Joshua Bartlett (B. J.) Palmer, who established the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1897. It traces the history of ideas behind early chiropractic theory, as developed by the Palmers and their contemporaries and rivals. This book argues that a great deal of alternative medicine can be apprehended through two themes: vitalism and populism, and that the protean positioning of chiropractic as a scientific practice and a holistic alternative allows it to appeal to health consumers desires. The Palmers' system depicted chiropractic as a conduit for both material and spiritualized versions of a “vital principle,” reflecting popular contemporary therapies and 19th -century metaphysical beliefs, including the idea that the spine was home to occult forces that regulated bodily health. Chiropractic illustrates how the ideological and therapeutic aspects of health care are intertwined. In the Progressive Era, as the relationship between science and religion took on an urgent, increasingly competitive tinge, many remarkable people, including the Palmers, undertook highly personal reinterpretations of their physical and spiritual worlds. In this context, this book reframes alternative medicine as a type of populist intellectual culture in which ideologies about the body comprise an appealing form of cultural resistance. This legacy continues in the Straight Chiropractic movement.