125YEARS
INSIDE THE LIFE WEST CHIROPRACTIC HISTORY MUSEUM BY AMANI HOPE
Life West’s museum, which opened in 2016, is home to an abundance of notable chiropractic artifacts carefully selected by Dr. George Casey, curator of the museum and a member of the Life West faculty for more than 30 years. “Chiropractic has a rich and colorful history and, unless its story is told and displayed through the collection of its artifacts, much will be lost or left in the writings of history books,” Dr. Casey said. As we prepare to celebrate the 125th anniversary of chiropractic, the museum offers the perfect opportunity to look back at the astonishing journey chiropractic has taken. One of the prized possessions of the Life West History Museum is a manuscript donated by Life West President Ron Oberstein, DC, consisting of about 500 handwritten pages by Milly Reaver, wife of Dr. Herbert Ross Reaver. Called “the most arrested chiropractor,” he endured multiple stints behind bars as he sought to continue to practice. 14 | LIFEWEST.EDU/MAGAZINE
The Journal of Chiropractic Achievers wrote in 1989 about Dr. Reaver’s mission to create a license for chiropractic. He told the local press at the time of his repeated arrests, “I am fighting for a principle, and someday I hope to see the Ohio law changed so that those engaged in practicing chiropractic will get a fair deal." Dr. Reaver eventually was successful in helping to change the laws, and he later held a position as vice president of the International Chiropractors Association. The museum also houses more than 400 books, and Dr. Casey said the goal is to collect every chiropractic book that has been published, which he estimates at around 2,000 books. Examples which are on display in the Life West museum include the “green books,” which are among the first textbooks written about chiropractic. This collection of 39 numbered volumes got its name from their green binding and vine-patterned endpaper. The first “green book” was written in 1906 by D.D. Palmer,
the founder of chiropractic. Other volumes were written by B.J. Palmer, known as the developer of chiropractic, his wife, Mabel, and many of the faculty of the Palmer College in the first half of the 1900s. Visitor favorites include adjusting tables that date to the early 1900s. Two upper cervical adjusting tables in the museum are from Dr. George Anderson’s office. He was the founder of Pacific States Chiropractic College, which later became Life West, and he practiced upper cervical chiropractic care in Hayward, California following his graduation from the Palmer College in 1954. Many artifacts in the museum were donated by Anderson’s family, and an exhibit of historical mementos that documents his life includes a photograph of Dr. Anderson receiving a Humanitarian Award from Ethiopian dignitaries Adebe Kabebe, Administrative General, and Haile Selassie, Imperial Majesty and Emperor of Ethiopia, during the first World Chiropractic Congress meeting in Montreaux,
