As a method of healing, chiropractic was developed by Daniel David Palmer. Palmer began his life in Ontario, Canada, and died in Los Angeles, California. During his lifetime, he moved around North America, where his new healing philosophy was often viewed with skepticism.

Palmer, however, was undaunted. His first spinal adjustment, which helped restore hearing to a deaf janitor, was done in 1895. This helped convince Palmer that adjustments to the spine were a key in helping to restore and maintain health, generally.

By 1897, Palmer had established the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. At the time, it was known as the Palmer School of Cure. Over time, Palmer developed the term chiropractic himself. Meaning “done by hand,” it comes from the classical Greek words for hand (cheir) and done (praktos). The term is a great summation of his healing philosophy.

Palmer was working and developing chiropractic at a time when mainstream medicine was evolving away from a hands-on approach. Western medicine was becoming increasingly lab-based and medications were becoming more and more common. Many traditional hands-on healers and practitioners, like midwives, were being forced out of practice as university-based scientific medicine took hold.

Daniel David Palmer’s innovation was thus in some ways a restoration of traditional healing practices. Although he broke new ground with spinal adjustments, the hands-on approach had been important in healing for millennia. Consider the various practices requiring the laying on of hands, in both religious and secular healing practices throughout the ages.

The early years of chiropractic were tough going. Although established doctors of medicine and osteopathy were among his students, Palmer often ran into regulatory trouble. By 1913, a state law licensing chiropractors had finally been passed. By the late 1940s, 39 of the then 48 states had recognized chiropractic as a legal form of healing.

Today, chiropractors are recognized as important medical practitioners. Where the was once animosity between mainstream medicine and chiropractic, today there is little. MDs and DOs frequently refer their patients to chiropractors for adjustments. Chiropractors also prescribe corrective exercises for patients.

Chiropractic is notable among other approaches to healing because it’s so holistic. Whereas most medical doctors specialize in one system, chiropractic seeks to address the whole patient and every system that’s at work in the body.