The father of Chiropractic, DD Palmer, believed that the innate healing power exists within the body and it is transmitted through the nervous system. He proposed that the misalignment of spinal vertebra could cause the body to get infected from disease because the transmission of natural healing power was interrupted and the affected organ could not receive normal nerve supply to heal naturally. Based on this line of thought, DD Palmer attributed that all diseases are caused by spinal misalignment or “subluxation”. Adjustment or manipulation of spinal vertebra could restore the normal flow of nerve supply. Once the natural healing power was transmitted smoothly to affected organ, the disease could be cured. This primitive theory was questioned severely by lots of health care professionals and later subjected to many scientific studies and research.
Scientific development in medical world has made us understand that DD Palmer's theory is incorrect. Diseases can be caused by many factors beyond the neuromusculoskeletal system. However, this early theory is still taught nowadays in chiropractic colleges to explain the history and theory of chiropractic. Aside from teaching spine manipulation techniques, chiropractic colleges today usually teach scientific concepts and subjects like spinal anatomy, organ system anatomy, biomechanics, diagnostic imaging, and nutrition to bring up deficiencies of DD Palmer's theory.