The principle of chiropractic was discovered September 18, 1895 by Dr. Daniel Palmer in Davenport, Iowa. On that day, Palmer was in his office carrying on a shouted conversation with the deaf janitor of the building, Harvey Lillard.

Lillard was explaining in shouts to Palmer that about 17 years earlier while working in a cramped, stooped position, something had “popped” in his back Since that time, his hearing had become progressively worse.

Dr. Palmer, a curious, intelligent man, examined Lillard’s back and found a painful, misaligned vertebra at the spot where something had “popped” 17 years earlier. He suspected a connection between this misaligned vertebra and Lillard’s impaired hearing-and reasoned that if something had gone wrong in his back and caused deafness, the correction of the misaligned vertebra should bring back Lillard’s hearing.

Using his hands, Palmer repositioned the vertebra with a gentle thrust. Lillard’s hearing improved immediately. In that moment, Palmer made the breakthrough that had eluded the greatest medical minds of all the ages … he had discovered the cause of nearly all human disease.

During the next few days, Palmer continued the hand treatments on Lillard’s spine. Within a week, Lillard was able to hear as well as anybody and was telling anybody who would listen about Dr. Palmer’s hand treatments.

Dr. Palmer’s fame quickly spread as he proved that the hand treatments were effective in all sorts of disease conditions. He became a world-renowned specialist in the spine and nerve system.

His research into the cause of disease had led him to the conclusion that misalignment of the spinal column interferes with normal nerve function and thus, an alteration of normal body functions.