By Chris Dalrymple, D.C., F.I.C.C
By the late fall of 1895, D. D. Palmer had developed four methods of adjusting the vertebrae of the spine; Willard Carver had also begun the study of chiropractic. In the summer of 1896 D.D. Palmer incorporated the Palmer School of Magnetic Cure, his thriving 40-bed magnetic healing facility on the fourth floor of the Ryan building in Davenport, Iowa. He also trained a few individuals in the new-school healing art of chiropractic that same year.
D. D. Palmer writes “Medicines and medical doctors are necessary; we cannot get along without them”, but Palmer minced no words: “People have been led to believe that all medical laws were made for the 'protection of the public against quacks.' But the facts are, that these laws are usually framed by professional quacks for their own protection.” “If Health Boards were what their name implies,” he continued, “they would utilize some of their fondness for law by getting out injunctions against manufacturers of anti-toxin…We are sick and tired of the monopoly of drugs and the ruling of medicine …. Laws should be made to protect the people, not a particular class or school.”
In 1898, the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas determines in the case of Dowdell V. McBride that the Texas constitutional statement that “The Legislature may pass laws prescribing the qualifications of practitioners of medicine in this State, and to punish persons for malpractice, but no preference shall ever be given by law to any schools of medicine” means that the legislature may give no preference by law to the qualifications of practitioners or to the punishment for malpractice based upon one’s school of medicine. The court concluded:
“The first portion of the constitutional provision above quoted confers upon the Legislature general power to pass laws (1) prescribing the qualifications of practitioners, and (2) to punish persons for malpractice."
“Continuing the same sentence, the latter part of the provision subtracts from such otherwise general power — the word ‘but’ being used in the sense of ‘except’ — by prohibiting the Legislature in such laws from inserting any provision making a distinction in such qualifications or punishment on account of the ‘school of medicine' to which any of such 'practitioners' or 'persons' may happen to belong."
“The first portion, dealing solely with ‘qualifications of practitioners’ and ‘punishment,’ and there being nothing in the context to indicate that the latter portion was intended to embrace any wider range of subjects, we must give it the effect, indicated by its situation and close connection with what precedes, of being merely a limitation upon the previous general power of prescribing ‘qualifications of practitioners' and 'punishments'."
“Therefore it should not be construed as intending to control the Legislature in the entirely different matter of prescribing the qualifications of members of the 'board of medical examiners'."
Also in 1898 D. D. Palmer begins to actively teach chiropractic to students. Texan Andrew P. Davis, MD, DO, may very well be the first chiropractic doctor of Texas. Dr. Davis first made an exhaustive investigation of the eclectic system, after which he turned his attention to allopathy practicing that system of medicine for about eleven years. He began the study of homeopathy and ophthalmology. In about 1879 he moved to Corsicana, Texas, where he was the pioneer homeopathic physician of that place, and successfully and favorably introduced that system in that community. In the spring of 1880 he settled in Dallas. In 1898 he graduated from D.D. Palmer’s School of Chiropractic. In 1901 D. D. Palmer taught five chiropractic students and the Palmer School of Magnetic Cure changed its name to Dr. Palmer’s Chiropractic School & Cure.
The AMA had other plans for medicine and medical education. The AMA reorganized itself in 1901. This same year the Medical Association of Texas renamed itself the State Medical Association of Texas. Under pressure from this state medical association the Texas legislature repealed all existing laws on medical practice and divided the medical field into three parts – medical, eclectic and homeopathic– and established the State Board of Medical Examiners.
In 1902, B. J. Palmer graduated Palmer Chiropractic School and his father, D. D., decided to go to the Pacific Coast. In June of that year D.D. removed all furnishings from his 21-room Sanitarium to Portland, Oregon. B.J. Palmer grasped the reins of the school, garnered a loan and in the next few years returned the institution to profitability. In 1904, D. D. Palmer returned from the west coast and joined B. J. in managing the Palmer School of Chiropractic, and “innate intelligence” made it’s public debut as a part of chiropractic philosophy.
In early 1906 Dr. Dan Reisland of Minnesota employed a local lawyer to write a chiropractic licensing bill and asked his legislator to introduce it. The bill passed, but was vetoed by the governor. It was the very first chiropractic licensing law introduced in any state. Also that year, as a result of not being eligible to become licensed as a medical practitioner under the sanctions introduced by organized medicine, both D. D. and B. J. Palmer were indicted on charges of violating the Iowa Medical Practice Act. The jury promptly convicted D.D. Palmer. He relinquished interest in the Palmer School of Chiropractic and moved to Medford, Oklahoma where he practiced chiropractic in his spare time.
In August of 1906, Palmer College established its annual August homecoming. During this initial homecoming a protective legal society was established, the Universal Chiropractors' Association. The Universal Chiropractic Association’s first major legal victory came in 1907 when Shegataro Morikubo, DC, was successfully defended against charges of unlicensed medical practice in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
By 1907 there are 14 chiropractic colleges documented, seven of them are in Oklahoma City. John A. Kent, DC, a future Keeler Award recipient, learning that Willard Carver was going to establish his Carver-Denny Kiropractic College, went to Oklahoma to await its opening and became its first student. He graduated in the first class of five in May 1907. That same year the Texas Legislature passed even stiffer requirements for application to the Board of Medical Examiners for licensure. It required that applicants must have attended a "reputable" medical school whose course of instruction should total 4,000 hours during four college years. Texas physicians would henceforth be required to attend a school with a four-year curriculum, and the schools would have to offer laboratory experience.
In August of 1908, Willard Carver purchases Denny’s interest in the Carver-Denny Kiropractic College and it becomes the Carver Chiropractic College, it is considered the first substantial competitor to B. J. Palmer and his Palmer Chiropractic School. These two schools would be the source for most of the doctors drifting southward into Texas from the early 1900s to the 1920s.
J. N. Stone D.C., a graduate of the Carver-Denny Kiropractic College , was on friendly terms with B.J. Palmer, and Willard Carver. “Dr. J.N. Stone, Guthrie, Oklahoma” is listed as endorsing Carver’s application for membership in the Association of Independent Doctors, dated December 31, 1908.
In September, 1908, a San Antonio newspaper runs a short article on chiropractic and Harvey Lillard’s recovery, and J. N. Stone founds the Chiropractic College of San Antonio, presiding there until 1913. He and his wife, Ida C. Stone, practiced as “Kiro-Practic Spinal Masseurs" and "Nerve Specialists.”
Dr. Clyde Keeler, who will become the creator of the Keeler Award, studies at Carver Chiropractic College and graduated in 1910 with his D.C. and Ph.C. Degrees. The honorary degree of PhC ("Philosopher of Chiropractic") was first awarded in 1908. Awarded to doctors of chiropractic by chiropractic colleges, the requirements for this honorary degree included high chiropractic academic achievement, postgraduate chiropractic philosophic coursework, or writing a 15,000 word essay regarding chiropractic philosophy.
Organized crime – a group of individuals working together to elicit profit through illegal and often violent methods – can be traced back to the street gangs of the 1800’s. The first decade of the 1900s brought the firm establishment of organized medicine – a limited group of individuals working together to elicit profit especially through the use of the legal system.
The first decade of the new century also closed with the firm establishment of the chiropractic profession and well over a dozen colleges of chiropractic doctors to teach the profession. The stage was set for conflict between organized medicine and anyone who doubted their self-proclaimed superiority.