DALLAS,TX, September 15, 2020
Parker University will join chiropractors, students, and health care professionals worldwide on September 18, 2020, to recognize the 125th anniversary of the chiropractic profession’s founding. This occasion celebrates the extreme impact chiropractic has made in modern health care. Over the years, the industry has expanded and fostered a successful journey to innovate this form of non-invasive healing.
In the beginning, the developer of chiropractic care, Daniel David Palmer, recognized that no one had developed a scientific way to explain the effects of adjusting the body to yield positive health benefits. He believed the human body has a natural supply of healing power tracing back to the nervous system and proposed that chiropractic manipulation could realign the spine to re-establish nerve supply to various injured parts of the body. Using his extensive study of anatomy and physiology, in September of 1895, Dr. Palmer pioneered the industry’s birth when he adjusted a janitor who had become deaf after feeling something give in his back. Dr. Palmer performed an adjustment to a potentially misplaced vertebra in the janitor’s back, and, before long, the man noticed improved hearing. After facilitating such a recovery, interest quickly grew in Dr. Palmer’s form of healing.
Once people started to see his work as credible and innovative, in 1897, Dr. Palmer further paved the way for the chiropractic industry when he established the Palmer School of Cure (now the Palmer College of Chiropractic) in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1913, the first state law was passed officially licensing chiropractors, and by 1931, 39 states had legally recognized chiropractors. Today, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, recognize chiropractic as a health care profession. Presently, there are more than 70,000 chiropractic licenses in the United States, and that number will likely continue to grow as roughly 2,500 new chiropractors enter the workforce annually.
Parker University President Dr. Bill Morgan says, “It’s a great time to look back at where we have come from, but it is also a time to look at the optimistic future that we are going to.”
Many of the core principles Dr. Palmer established 125 years ago have served as the foundation for the development of the modern concepts and applications of patient service rendered by chiropractors today. The overwhelmingly positive results chiropractors have provided to millions of individuals continue to impress, even all these years later.
About Parker University
Parker University, the fourth-fastest growing college in Texas and the fastest-growing college in Dallas, was founded in 1982 by Dr. James William Parker (formerly Parker College of Chiropractic). In 2020, Parker University was deemed a Great College to Work For®. Today, Parker University has more than 1,800 students and 34 academic programs, including its famed chiropractic program, as well as master’s degrees in neuroscience, clinical neuroscience, strength and human performance, and functional nutrition. Currently, Parker University’s chiropractic cohort is the second largest of any campus in the world.
