A few weeks ago, Dr. Kadi and I had to go to our state conference meeting at Century Link Center in Omaha, Nebraska. It was for continuing education hours but it was a special conference put on by Nebraska Chiropractic Physicians Association which we are members of. This was a special year for chiropractic in the state of Nebraska because we were celebrating 100 years of chiropractic being legal in Nebraska. It was 1915 that Nebraska allowed chiropractic to get a license. Kansas was the first state in 1913 and Louisiana was the last state in 1974.
Chiropractic has came a long ways since then. There as been evidence that chiropractic has been done through out history but it didn’t have a name yet. We have talked about it before in our post, History of Chiropractic Care. BJ Palmer, son of DD Palmer, continued the tradition of running Palmer Chiropractic College, which is one of the many schools that helps lead the way for chiropractic research and showing the benefits in today’s current evidence-based society.
Dr. Kadi and I went to Cleveland Chiropractic College located in Kansas City, more specifically in Overland Park, Kansas now. Cleveland has a strong history in Nebraska. The founders of Cleveland Chiropractic College have their roots in the Nebraska soil. It started with Sylvia Ashworth, DC, whose parents help to start Peru State College if I recall correctly. She sold her farm in Eagle, Nebraska, to go to Palmer Chiropractic to become a Chiropractor after she herself was “saved” by a chiropractor. She has been given weeks to live by medical professionals when she went to a local Chiropractor, who indeed did save her life and made her want to be a chiropractor. She was a foremost leader of chiropractic at the time, especially here in Nebraska after she graduated and moved back to Lincoln, Nebraska. Her daughter Ruth continued the tradition by going to Palmer Chiropractic. She met her husband, Carl S Cleveland and had a child, Carl S Cleveland Jr, in Iowa before they left for Kansas City. They went to there to help Central Chiropractic College, which would eventually become Cleveland Chiropractic College. I was always told that they moved to KC to work with sports and the YMCA.
I know this doesn’t seem like much to most but it important to know your history. Chiropractors had a rough career in the beginning. There were chiropractors being thrown in jail and persecuted just because they were chiropractors and at that time, chiropractic was seen as a threat to the medical society. I remember seeing pictures of chiropractors adjusting in jail cells because patients would come visit the chiropractor during visiting hours. There is plenty of history of people not liking chiropractors and even some today but chiropractic is more accepted each year and is now recommended by the AMA for conservative care for low back pain/neck pain.
Chiropractic is still going strong. There are a lot of positive effects it has on and for people and new research continues to prove that chiropractic is safe, affordable and effective for many muscle/joint/nerve issues. A lot of chiropractors like us, do our main treatment of adjusting but sometimes we need to help support the adjustment like using soft tissue therapies, acupuncture, nutrition, or exercises, so we do have that knowledge too. If you have any questions, want any research, or want to learn more about the history of chiropractic, please feel free to contact us.
And remember that chiropractic does have some roots in our great state of Nebraska! They were smart people that helped fight the good fight and have made chiropractic become a mainstay in our lives today.