A Brief History of Chiropractic

Our Expert Author, Dr. Gregg D. Rubinstein, Explains Some Basic Facts About Chiropractic

A Brief History of Chiropractic:

It was started in 1895 by D.D. Palmer who at the time was a magnetic healer. There was a janitor in the building in which he had an office and one day Dr. Palmer was working pretty late and the janitor was there cleaning up. Now this custodian was mostly deaf, but Dr. Palmer was able to communicate with him and he said "Let me ask you a question, what happened to your hearing?" The custodian told him that one day he had lifted something quite heavy and he had suddenly felt a pop in his back and he immediately lost the majority of his hearing. So Dr. Palmer asked if the custodian minded if he examined him. So he laid him down and looked at the custodian's upper back and found a lump over by his spine and said "I just want to try something here..." He leaned in and pressed on the lump and he heard a pop and the janitor could suddenly hear again. So that piqued Dr Palmer's interest and then he started to study spinal manipulation and he developed the practice of chiropractic. The art of spinal manipulation is something that has been going on for thousands of years. There were hieroglyphics found in Egypt that demonstrated spinal manipulation that were over two thousand years old. Spinal manipulation is nothing new. There were people in England who used to do it called "bone-setters." The Chinese have also been doing spinal manipulation for thousands of years.


What is the difference between straights and mixers?

A straight chiropractor does spinal manipulation only. Someone that calls themselves a mixer might use some physical therapy modality, might incorporate massage, might use ultrasound, electric stimulation, hot packs and those types of things. A straight chiropractor would only manipulate the spine.

What do you do?

I do mostly straight chiropractic, but I would be called a mixer by someone who is completely straight because I do use physical modality to alleviate pain. If someone comes in and they are in a lot of pain, you cannot adjust them immediately so sometimes you have to relax the muscles so you can get in there and do the adjustments if they are too what we call "hot" - which means they are in too much pain and if you try to manipulate that person, it is going to send them through the roof. Part of being a good chiropractor, rather than an average chiropractor, is not only knowing where or when to adjust, but most importantly also knowing when not to.