Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 229, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1915 — Chiropractors Should Not Be Subject of Persecutions. [ARTICLE]

Chiropractors Should Not Be Subject of Persecutions.

The Republican is by request publishing an article contributed by a doctor of chiropractic to The Indianapolis Star, following the plans taken at the meeting of tne state medical society to put the chiros out of business. At tne last session of the legislature an effort was made to license the practice of chiropractic in this state but it was opposed by medica men and was defeated. It seems to us that regulation would be better. The writer has never been attended by a chiro and knows but little of their profession but believes there is a field for it and that there should be no controversy with the doctors of medicine. There are doubtless fakirs in the chiropractice, jußt as there have been in medicine. It .became necessary to pass laws to regulate the practice of medicine and to require standards of proficiency and when these were established the fakirs largely disappeared. The chiros have a recognized standard and a school to equip candidates to meet the standard, just as the osteopaths have. There are some • who are practicing who are not up to the standard and regulation would eliminate them. True, there are persons who have tried chiropractice who have not been benefited and who will pronounce them of no good, but there are others who have received relief and cure at their hands and the experience is not at all different from that of many with doctors of medicine. The medical profession is one of the noblest in the world and yet many practitioners are unable to solve" some very simple ailments and there are a class of patients who make the rounds of the doctors without getting any lasting benefit from any of them. It is claimed by some of these that the first relief they have had has come from the chiros and this is the evidence that should cause them to be licensed and regulated by the legislature and physicians should welcome this action and be glad to have persons working for the relief of human suffering in a manner in which their schooling has not preptred them. Locally, Joe Jeffries is a type of citizen any community should be pleased to have. He is clean morally, thrifty, honest and a churchman. He spent several months acquiring the education that made him a chiropractic and he is as devoted to the welfare of his clients as any physician in Indiana. Certainly no legislature should Contemplate depriving these men of the right to practice without proving that their business as abusiness is a fraud. Individual cases & fraud would not suffice, they can be cared for by regulation. But if Joe Jeffries is a fair sample of the chiropractics of Indiana there is certainly no honorable basis for the opposition of the Indiana State Medical Society.