Chiropractic’s 126th Birthday

This month is Chiropractic’s 126th Birthday.  On September 18th, 1985, Dr. D.D. Palmer delivered the first chiropractic adjustment to his janitor, Harvey Lillard.  Those of you who are Practice Members in my office know that Mr. Lillard was deaf, and his hearing was restored after just two chiropractic adjustments.  Many will call that a “miracle.”  I call it this:

The healing power of the human body.

Innate.

Life.

I’ve told this story multiple times.  I call it a “story,” but it’s really a re-telling of a monumental and historical event that most people today don’t fully comprehend.

You see, over the last 126 years, we have been fooled.  We have been led to believe that our bodies are incapable of living and thriving without outside intervention.  That if we become ill or injured, we do not have the capacity to heal without drugs, vaccines, surgeries, or injections.  Do not misunderstand me.  Medicine has done marvelous things to save lives.  There is a time and a place for modern medicine.  Yet, how many of you can honestly admit that modern medicine has failed you on some level?

What modern medicine fails to account for most of the time is your body’s natural born—INNATE—properties to heal and function.  Millions of automatic functions occur day in and day out from birth to death, and we never give them a single thought.  Yet, when the human frame fails, the words spoken are “you are sick,” and the knee jerk reaction is a prescription or other form of symptomatic relief with no consideration for the actual source of the problem.  Often, this begets other problems, and a vicious cycle of ill-health begins.

Our bodies don’t fail because they aren’t propped up by a prescription pad.  They don’t fail because there’s not a poke to fool our immune system.  They fail because of the stresses that we endure day in and day out until it becomes too much.  They fail because we don’t know how to properly support our Innate.  Physical, Chemical, Emotional—all stress matters.  The stress placed on us and the stress we place on ourselves.  The stress of the prescriptions, injections, and surgeries also matter—none of which actually improve our overall health.  The social unrest and polarization of our society in recent years also matters to our health.  It is killing us.

Our bodies fail because we focus on the wrong thing.  We don’t need more put into us.  Our bodies need support. Our bodies need life.  Healthy and clean food, sunshine (Vitamin D), physical activity, community, love, friends, family, laughter, fun, naps, play time (yes, even adults!), FORGIVENESS.  We are hell-bent on death and disease and blaming everyone around us, rather than turning inward and asking, “How can I support my Innate and make my body and my life stronger?”  And we are missing out on life.

September is Chiropractic’s birthday.  In these times that we live currently, I don’t want to be soft and gooey over how amazing chiropractic is for you and your family.  It is amazing.  But rather than sunshine and rainbows, I want you to resonate with the vitalistic importance of chiropractic and begin to understand that you are more and you deserve more than you have been told.  So, I am sharing with all of you the words of Dr. B.J. Palmer—the son of Dr. D.D. Palmer and “The Developer” of Chiropractic.  

“WE CHIROPRACTORS work with the subtle substance of the soul. We release the prisoned impulse, the tiny rivulet of force that emanates from the mind and flows over the nerves to the cells and stirs them into life.

We deal with the magic power that transforms common food into living, loving, thinking clay; that robes the earth with beauty, and hues and scents the flowers with the glory of the air.

In the dim, dark, distant long ago, when the sun first bowed to the morning star, this power spoke and there was life; it quickened the slime of the sea and the dust of the earth and drove the cell to union with its fellows in countless living forms.

Through eons of time it finned the fish and winged the bird and fanged the beast. Endlessly it worked, evolving its forms until it produced the crowning glory of them all.

With tireless energy it blows the bubble of each individual life and then silently, relentlessly dissolves the form, and absorbs the spirit into itself again.

And yet you ask, “Can Chiropractic cure appendicitis or the ‘flu’?”

Have you more faith in a knife or a spoonful of medicine than in the Innate power that animates the internal living world ?”

–B.J Palmer