Holly Folk. The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland

Abstract

Chiropractic has grown from a tiny, marginalized movement (13,000 practitioners in 1970) to a major cultural and medical presence (66,000 practitioners in 2014) in the United States. Yet, most Americans know little about chiropractic, beyond associating it with relief of back pain through a more natural, hands-on approach than conventional medicine. The mainstreaming of chiropractic is actually quite remarkable, given that its developers were strident critics of medical and Christian orthodoxy (from the germ theory of disease to a personal God). The Religion of Chiropractic complicates readers’ understanding of this practice. The chronological, biographical structure of the book suits its subject. Chapters one and two narrate D. D. Palmer’s “discovery” and experiments with chiropractic beginning in the 1890s. Chapters three through five explain how chiropractic theory and practice were “developed,” institutionalized, and contested by D. D.’s son B. J. and others in the early twentieth century. Chapter six highlights B. J.’s contributions up through his death in 1961 before examining medical mainstreaming under B. J.’s son Dave and after the Supreme Court, in 1990, proscribed the AMA from discriminating against chiropractors in Wilk vs. AMA. Chapter seven takes the story into the twenty-first century and globally.