I was doing some Google searches on topics related to B.J. Palmer and came across a great link. It just so happened to be a patient education booklet in PDF format written by Dr. Clarence Jensen and Dr. Richard Doble, Jr. It is called An Introduction to the B.J. Palmer System of Upper Cervical Specific Chiropractic Care. Here is an excerpt:
“Dr. B.J. Palmer made a lot of enemies along his road of life because he would not tolerate the mixing of Chiropractic with that of medicine. I feel that a good Chiropractor does not use anything but straight Chiropractic methods, i.e. finding subluxated vertebra (vertebra that are out of place), which are producing either spinal cord pressure or spinal nerve pressure and adjusting these vertebra back to their normal positions. Getting rid of the nerve interference, and letting the patient’s Innate Intelligence heal their own body. This is what we mean by the “natural way to health” – you are not using drugs to fool the mind into thinking you are feeling better than you are. Using drugs has never cured a dis-ease! – make a collection of daily newspaper articles on drugs. They tell constantly that yesterday’s miracle drug is today’s failure killing many people!
B.J. was very adamant about adjusting only when there was a nerve interference displayed on instrumentation and not over adjusting the patient. Also, he was strict about using x-ray to determine the position of the spinal vertebra and not relying on hand examinations of the spine, which were found to be inaccurate with scientific study. Dr. Palmer found that resting the patient was crucial to the patient holding the adjustment. That is why we rest you after your very specific spinal adjustment!”
I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Make sure you check it out here.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s interesting. I would like to see a little something about the people BJ surrounded himself with… if you read this booklet it sounds as if BJ was more or less responsible for everything in chiropractic, but it was really the work of others that BJ used to create and develop the upper cervical technique…
- AA Wernsing was the first to come up with the idea of the atlas being the major in most cases. He invented true plane radiography and spinography. It was his trip to Davenport in the early 1930′s that led BJ and his collaborators to more or less rewrite “The Subluxation Specific, the Adjustment Specific.” Wernsing also developed the first table (vernier table) and method for adjusting C1 from a side-lying position. Without Wernsing, upper cervical chiropractic care would be very, very different.
- Dossa Dixon Evins – inventor of the Neurocalometer. Evins invented the NCM before he even enrolled at Palmer. Otto Schiernbeck later went on to add the graph to the NCM, and they of course called it the Neurocalograph. Evins was also responsible, in my opinion, for the success of WOC because it was his experience in electrical engineering that allowed him to sync up antennas in Davenport and, I think, Des Moines, allowing BJ to broadcast to a much wider area.
- Clay Thompson – a quick search of the Green Books will show anyone who cares that BJ thought Clay and his headpiece were the bee’s knees. Thompson pretty much revolutionized the way an upper cervical adjustment is given and his contribution to that, as well as precision x-ray positioning through his invention of the headclamp system still used today, can’t be underestimated.
- Clear View – Clear View Sanitarium was operating before BJ bought the place in the 1950′s (around ’51 or ’52 I think). Quigley was doing some amazing things out there and BJ bought the place, he was hardly a pioneer in this regard. The 1940′s and 1950′s actually saw a lot of interest in chiropractic and mental health, but it was largely the work of others, really. What happened to CV and its records and research after BJ died is a shame.
- Palmer Standardized Chiropractic Council (or something like that) – was an invitation-only group of upper-cervical adherents who corresponded regularly and met the week before Lyceum every year to refine the upper cervical work. This group spawned folks you’ve heard of like John Grostic, and from there the whole of upper cervical techniques blossomed.
This isn’t to say that BJ wasn’t important. Important is hardly a strong enough word! In my opinion, BJ’s greatest talents were his abilities to recognize greatness in others, delegate, and see the potential of new technologies. He was also very strong-willed and it takes someone like that to see something through to the end. BJ was an amazing man, but without these people I mentioned, and many, many more, nothing ever would have come of any of his vision.
This booklet is what I give to new patients on the first visit.
Dr. Doble or anyone else,
Any knowledge if chirotherms are still being made?
EDL makes a chirotherm.
Great points Steve! BJ was hugely significant in our history but we must not forget others that made substantial contributions to our profession and to many of BJ’s accomplishments and projects. He spearheaded many things that helped us to accomplish our objective in a more accurate and scientific way even though he was not always the one to originally come up with the idea.