Spineless

Francis Sedgemore, Thursday 4 June 2009 at 10:01 UTC

The case of Simon Singh vs the British Chiropractic Association continues apace, with the noted science writer launching an appeal against the imbecilic High Court ruling of Mr Justice Eady.

Added to this we now have a high-profile campaign supported by the great and the good of the scientific establishment, arts and media worlds. And lowly mortals such as myself. The organisers of the campaign – Sense About Science – may be a front for the bizarre political cult once known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, but it would be churlish to use this as a reason not to sign the petition in support of Simon Singh.

Writing today in the Independent, Steve Connor helpfully provides a little background on chiropractic…

“Chiropractice is the manipulation of the spine to treat a range of problems not associated with a bad back. It was invented by Daniel David Palmer of Davenport, Iowa, at the turn of the 20th century after he claimed to have cured an office janitor, Harvey Lillard, of deafness by ‘racking’ his back. Palmer, known as ‘DD’, said that Lillard had been deaf for 17 years after he had strained his back. ‘I reasoned that if that vertebra was replaced, the man’s hearing should be restored,’ he said. ‘I racked it into position by using the spinous process as a lever and soon the man could hear as before.’

“After an unsuccessful earlier career in ‘magnetic healing’, Palmer switched to spine manipulation, which his close friend the Rev Samuel H Weed called chiropractice after the Greek words for ‘hand’ and ‘practice’, meaning ‘done by hand’.

“Palmer wanted to turn chiropractice into a new religion, with himself at the helm, and openly likened himself to Martin Luther, Mohamed and Christ: ‘I am the fountainhead. I am the founder of chiropractice in its science, in its art, in its philosophy and in its religious phase.’

“He practised racking the spines on his many children – he was married six times – and his over-enthusiasm with physical punishment sometimes landed him in trouble with the police.

Palmer died in 1913 after being run over by a car allegedly driven by one of his sons, Bartlett.

Why the “ allegedly”? Perhaps Daniel Palmer’s acolytes threatened to sue the son.

“I am the fountainhead,” said the founder of the quack medicine known as chiropractic. That statement has been made by many a crank over the years.

Palmer might as well have said: “I am the dick-head.”


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Comments

  1. anon

    Thursday 4 June 2009 at 14:42 UTC

    There’s something odd about the updating of the Singh supporters list. It looks like someone is checking through the names one by one before publishing them.

  2. Francis Sedgemore

    Thursday 4 June 2009 at 14:49 UTC

    Are you “alleging” that Sense about Science is vetting the list? Even the RCP wouldn’t behave in such a ridiculous manner .

  3. Gadjo Dilo

    Friday 5 June 2009 at 08:09 UTC

    He couldn’t even write proper English. “Spinous process”? And surely “if that vertebra were replaced”…

  4. Francis Sedgemore

    Friday 5 June 2009 at 08:19 UTC

    Yes, Palmer was as thick as shit. For the lowdown on chiropractic, here’s Henry Louis Mencken…

    “This preposterous quackery flourishes lushIy in the back reaches of the Republic, and begins to conquer the less civilized folk of the big cities. As the old-time family doctor dies out in the country towns, with no competent successor willing to take over his dismal business, he is followed by some hearty blacksmith or ice-wagon driver, turned into a chiropractor in six months, often by correspondence. In Los Angeles the Damned, there are probably more chiropractors than actual physicians, and they are far more generally esteemed. Proceeding from the Ambassador Hotel to the heart of the town, along Wilshire boulevard, one passes scores of their gaudy signs; there are even chiropractic “hospitals.” The Mormons who pour in from the prairies and deserts, most of them ailing, patronize these “hospitals” copiously, and give to the chiropractic pathology the same high respect that they accord to the theology of the town sorcerers. That pathology is grounded upon the doctrine that all human ills are caused by pressure of misplaced vertebrae upon the nerves which come out of the spinal cord — in other words, that every disease is the result of a pinch. This, plainly enough, is buncombe. The chiropractic therapeutics rest upon the doctrine that the way to get rid of such pinches is to climb upon a table and submit to a heroic pummeling by a retired piano-mover. This, obviously, is buncombe doubly damned.”

    That’s just the opening paragraph from a 1924 essay in the Baltimore Sun.

  5. Alec

    Sunday 7 June 2009 at 16:57 UTC

    And homeopathy was founded by an occultist. Which makes Nadine Dorries’ endorsement of it and nutty Christian evangelican groups all the more barking.

  6. Francis Sedgemore

    Sunday 7 June 2009 at 18:59 UTC

    Yea, those evangelicans and their shitty synthesiser music. Shootin’s too good for them.