• Foley JM
• Faulkner TJ
• Senzon SA

• Books / history
• Langworthy, Solon Massey, 1868-1922
• Palmer, Bartlett Joshua, 1881-1961 / authorship
• Palmer, Daniel David, 1845-1913 / biography
• Paxson, Minora C
• Smith, Oakley

Background: The consensus in the chiropractic historical literature to date has been that Smith, Langworthy, and Paxson's 1906 book, Modernized Chiropractic was the first chiropractic book and that D.D. and B.J. Palmer's first book, The Science of Chiropractic, or Vol. 1, was published as a response. There is no primary evidence to support either of these claims. This paper sets out to explore primary sources to determine the order of publication of the first chiropractic textbooks.

Methods: The chiropractic grey literature was searched for the term "Modernized Chiropractic" to determine how widespread the unsupported claims are about Smith et al.'s book being first. Grey literature is documentary material that is not commercially published or indexed in standard library databases. Primary evidence surrounding the publication of the first books is examined and organized into chronological narrative based on evidence. Furthermore, the recent definition of a Green Book was amended and applied to the first books to categorize the chiropractic canon.

Results: A new historical discovery of Smith's 1899 manuscript rewrites the timeline of the first chiropractic books.  Analysis of the historical context and the chiropractic literature between the years 1899 and 1905 determined an accurate timeline of publication of the first chiropractic books. These results are contrasted with the historical literature, which was found to contain incorrect facts and evidence of bias. A timeline and categorization of the books was completed.

Conclusion: The first chiropractic book was Smith's 1899 Chiropractic, followed by Davis's 1905 Neuropathy, which mainly described the chiropractic thrust. The third book published in chiropractic was the Palmer's Vol. 1, and Modernized Chiropractic was fourth. It was determined that of the four books, Smith's 1899 book and Palmer's Vol. 1 meet Green Book criteria. This evidence-based approach to the history of chiropractic offers the profession a new timeline on its seminal literature helping the profession to sort out its complex history of ideas.

This abstract is reproduced with the permission of the publisher. Article only available in print.