Chiropractic's founder said he learned it from a long-dead doctor
D. D. Palmer, a spiritualist, founded chiropractic in the 1890s and claimed the method came to him from the other world, passed on by a physician who had died 50 years earlier. The practice is now well established in the United States, Canada and Australia, yet reviews find no compelling evidence it works for any condition.
Chiropractic grew out of folk bonesetting and focuses on mechanical problems of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine. Treatment centres on hands-on manipulation, sometimes with exercise and lifestyle advice, and most patients come for low back pain. Practitioners may hold a Doctor of Chiropractic degree and be called doctor, but they are not medical doctors, and their clinical training does not meet the standard for primary care.
Its central idea is the vertebral subluxation. In medicine that word means a partial dislocation of a joint that can be seen on an X-ray. Palmer gave it a mystical meaning rooted in vitalism: misaligned vertebrae supposedly disturbed nerve vibrations and the body's inborn healing power, which he linked to Innate Intelligence. His son B. J. Palmer developed the concept, which also helped chiropractors argue legally that they were not practising medicine. A World Federation of Chiropractic official has described the subluxation as functional, so no more visible on X-ray than a limp. Britain's regulator states there is no clinical research evidence to support claims that it causes disease.
The evidence is thin. A 2011 critical evaluation of 45 systematic reviews found spinal manipulation had not been convincingly shown to work for any condition. Safety data are insufficient; mild to moderate side effects are common, and rare serious complications occur. Whether neck manipulation can tear the vertebral artery and cause stroke is disputed, although several deaths have been linked to it. Anti-vaccination views are also widespread within the profession.
The profession is split. Traditional straight chiropractors keep the founders' metaphysics, while most mixers blend it with science, and some schools now teach an evidence-based approach limited to nerves, muscles and joints. In 1966 the American Medical Association denounced it as an unscientific cult, and its boycott lasted until 1987, when the AMA lost an antitrust suit. One physician writing in the Skeptical Inquirer argued that whatever helps patients is spinal manipulation itself, which physiotherapists and osteopathic doctors also offer.
Source: Chiropractic
