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What Can Chiropractors Treat? (1906)

Bartlett Joshua Palmer -- usually called "B.J." -- was the son of chiropractic's founder and is considered responsible for chiropractic's survival and development. The passages below appeared in his book The Science of Chiropractic: Its Principles and Adjustments, published in 1906 by the Palmer School of Chiropractic. The sweeping nature of B.J.'s claims is one reason that the medical profession of his day regarded chiropractic as an unscientific cult. The Parker Chiropractic Research Foundation republished an unabridged version of Palmer's book in 1988.

Your Disease

B.J. Palmer, D.C. (1906)

We know where to find the cause of your ailments. There would be perfect action if the human mechanism was in proper position. We make it our special business to adjust any part of the skeletal frame that is displaced and pressing on nerves. Chiropractic corrects the cause of your trouble, then it is only natural, that you should be well. If you have any of the following ailments, stop taking drugs. Come to the Palmer School of Chiropractic Infirmary and have Chiropractic adjust the cause. . . .

Abscesses (any part of the body) Apoplexy Asthma Appendicitis Bright's disease Brain fever Bladder troubles Bronchitis Cancer (any part of body) Constipation Cataract Cholera Morbus Child Bed Fever Catarrh Colic Consumption (Quick or chronic) Diabetes Diarrhoea Dyspepsia Dysmenorrhea Dropsy Dysentery Deafness Diphtheria Emissions Epilepsy Eczema Erysipelas Female Diseases Gleet Fevers (all types) Goitre Gravel Gall Stones. Gout Gastrodynia Gonorrhea Hernia (any part of abdomen) Hysteria Hay Fever Heart Disease Heart Burn Hydrocele Impotency Insomnia Indigestion Insanity

Jaundice Kidney Diseases Liver Diseases Lost Manhood LaGrippe Leucorrhea Lumbago Lupus Mumps Measles Malaria Fever Meningitis Neuralgia Nervous Debility Ovarian Diseases Pharynigitis [sic] Palsy Pleurisy Paralysis Pneumonia Peritonitis Piles Quinsy Rheumatism (any part of body) Rupture Sarcocele Sciatica Spleen Scrofula St. Vitus Dance Spinal Meningitis Spinal Diseases Smallpox Scurvy Tumors (any part of body) Typhoid Urinary Diseases Varicocele Vertigo Worms (any kind) Whooping Cough Womb     (Inflammation of)     (Displacement of)     (Tumors of)     (Polypi of)     (Cancer of)

If your disease is not on this list, bear in mind that this chapter is not as large as a medical dictionary.

Early pictorial representation of Palmer's theory that
pinched spinal nerves are the cause of disease.

ILLUSTRATION NO. 43. This illustration represents the trunk, branches and fruit of a tree. The trunk corresponds to the spinal cord, the branches to the nerves, and the fruit to the organs of the human body, as shown in the right half of the cut. Pliers are represented as pinching a limb, also the nerves which control the functions of the stomach, the results are immature worthless fruit, and a diseased stomach. In the human body, the intervertebral foramina are the pinchers. The vertebrae are wrenched, displaced, occluding the openings thru which the nerves pass. Chiropractors assert that this pressure causes 100 per cent of all diseases. The leaves and fruit are at the twig ends of the limbs. The organs of the body are at the peripheral endings of the spinal nerves. Disturbed functions in any other branch, or spinal nerve, would have shown similar results in other fruit or vital organs. From: The Science of Chiropractic by B.J. Palmer, D.C. (1906)