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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi everyone, Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: where we uncover the remnants of history every day. Today

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Speaker 1: is September. The day was September eight. Daniel David Palmer,

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Speaker 1: a spiritualist and magnetic healer who had held several jobs,

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Speaker 1: performed the first chiropractic adjustment on a man named Harvey Lillard.

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Speaker 1: Palmer immigrated from Canada to the US in eighteen sixty.

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Speaker 1: In the States, he worked as a teacher, ran a

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Speaker 1: fruit and berry nursery and apiary, and operated a grocery store.

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Speaker 1: He read a lot about anatomy, physiology, neurology, and pathology,

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Speaker 1: but he also took an interest in spiritualism and alternative medicine.

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Speaker 1: Spiritualism was a religious movement that centered on the belief

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Speaker 1: that spirits of the dead communicate with the living. While

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Speaker 1: he was in Iowa teaching, Palmer learned magnetic healing from

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Speaker 1: Poulcaster in the city of Autumbwa. Magnetic healing is an

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Speaker 1: alternative medicine practice based on the claim that static magnetic

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Speaker 1: fields from permanent magnets placed close to the body can

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Speaker 1: effectively heal various ailments. Magnetic healing is considered a pseudoscience.

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Speaker 1: In September of eighteen eighty six, Palmer opened an office

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Speaker 1: in Burlington and began to practice magnetic healing. The next year,

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Speaker 1: he moved to Davenport and opened a magnetic healing office there.

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Speaker 1: Around this time, he became outspoken about his opposition to vaccination, drugs,

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Speaker 1: and vivisection. On September eight he gave Harvey Lillard, a

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Speaker 1: black elevator operator in Custodian, his first chiropractic adjustment. Palmer

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Speaker 1: wrote that Lillard had been deaf for seventeen years. When

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Speaker 1: he asked what the cause of his deafness was, Lillard

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Speaker 1: said when he bent into a cramp stooping position, he

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Speaker 1: felt something give way in his back and immediately became deaf.

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Speaker 1: Palmer found in an examination that a vertebra was off

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Speaker 1: its normal position, and figured that Lillard's hearing would be

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Speaker 1: restored if he racked it into position by quote using

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Speaker 1: the spinest process as a lever. When he did that,

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Speaker 1: the man could reportedly here again. Palmer has told several

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Speaker 1: stories of how he supposedly cured Lillard of his deafness,

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Speaker 1: from a claim that he performed the adjustment in an elevator,

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Speaker 1: the one that he accidentally hit Lillard in the back.

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Speaker 1: Soon Palmer transitioned from magnetic healer to chiropractor. He initially

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Speaker 1: attributed his breakthrough in chiropractic to Jim Atkinson, a doctor

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Speaker 1: who had died years before, though he eventually began to

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Speaker 1: attribute the development as the culmination of his own knowledge

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Speaker 1: and experiences. Later, he created a journal called The Chiropractor.

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Speaker 1: After getting suggestions from Reverend Samuel Weed, a patient and

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Speaker 1: friend of his, Palmer coined the words chiropractic from the

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Speaker 1: Greek words meaning hand and done. In eight seven, Palmer

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Speaker 1: opened the Palmer School and Infirmary, later renamed the Palmer

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Speaker 1: School of Chiropractic. The first four students, including his son

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Speaker 1: b J, graduated in January of nineteen o two. The

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Speaker 1: next year, Palmer and his son formed an equal partnership.

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Speaker 1: Palmer proselytized chiropractic and was self aggrandizing beyond the questionable

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Speaker 1: legitimacy of his practices. He was engaged in other sketchy

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Speaker 1: activities related to his business. His advertising campaigns were over

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Speaker 1: the top, He faced lawsuits, and he had disagreements with

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Speaker 1: his son, whom he partnered with to run the Palmer

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Speaker 1: School of Chiropractic. In nineteen o six, Palmer was tried

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Speaker 1: and found guilty of practicing medicine without a license. Palmer

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Speaker 1: chose to do jail time rather than pay a fine,

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Speaker 1: and the property of the school and clinic was placed

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Speaker 1: in the name of b J's wife. Palmer's wife ended

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Speaker 1: up paying the fine after he spent some time in jail,

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Speaker 1: but b J would not let his father come back

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Speaker 1: to the school. Palmer sold his share of the school

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Speaker 1: to his son and moved to Oklahoma. He became affiliated

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Speaker 1: with chiropractic schools in Oklahoma, Oregon, and California before he

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Speaker 1: died in nineteen thirteen. B J. Palmer considered his father

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Speaker 1: the founder of chiropractic and himself the developer. B J

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Speaker 1: was president of the Palmer School of Chiropractic from nineteen

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Speaker 1: o six until his death in nineteen six one. Today,

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Speaker 1: chiropractic is considered a pseudo scientific alternative medicine. I'm Eves

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Speaker 1: Jeff Coote and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. Keep up with us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at T D I H C. Podcast,

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