• Leach RA

• Licensure, Chiropractic / history / Mississippi
• Maxwell, Willie R., 1928-
• Mississippi Chiropractic Association
• Norville, Louis Alfred Jr, 1928-

Forty years ago Mississippi became the second to last U.S. state to license chiropractors, despite opposition both by the medical profession and a divided chiropractic profession.  Opposition to the new law continued when it was challenged by the Mississippi State Medical Association in 1976 in what later became termed the Norville Case.  Again a fractured chiropractic profession provided support for litigation that resulted in a Mississippi Supreme Court decision to limit chiropractic scope of practice from use of nutritional advice and certain physiological therapeutic procedures.  By 1989 Mississippi chiropractors would finally secure the right to utilize therapies and nutritional approaches that they had earlier helped pioneer.  It may be argued then that the late progress in achieveing licensure - 50 years after dozens of other states - and in securing a full practice scope, occurred despite both opposition from organized medical groups and friendly fire from within the profession.

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