Chiropractic is by far the most common form of alternative medicine
in the United States today, but its fascinating origins stretch
back to the battles between science and religion in the nineteenth
century. At the center of the story are chiropractic's colorful
founders, D. D. Palmer and his son, B. J. Palmer, of Davenport,
Iowa, where in 1897 they established the Palmer College of
Chiropractic. Holly Folk shows how the Palmers' system depicted
chiropractic as a conduit for both material and spiritualized
versions of a "vital principle," reflecting popular contemporary
therapies and nineteenth-century metaphysical beliefs, including
the idea that the spine was home to occult forces.
The creation of chiropractic, and other Progressive-era versions of
alternative medicine, happened at a time when the relationship
between science and religion took on an urgent, increasingly
competitive tinge. Many remarkable people, including the Palmers,
undertook highly personal reinterpretations of their physical and
spiritual worlds. In this context, Folk reframes alternative
medicine and spirituality as a type of populist intellectual
culture in which ideologies about the body comprise a highly
appealing form of cultural resistance.