When internist Paul Shekelle was in medical school in the 1970s, the gentle art of chiropractic was widely viewed as bunk: heir to the tradition of ! bloodletting and rattlesnake oil. The American Medical Association's committee on quackery had branded the practice an "unscientific cult," and medical- school professors had obediently followed suit. The reluctance of the so- called back-crackers to submit their technique to the scrutiny of hard science served only to reinforce the official scorn. Recalls Shekelle: "They were seen as hucksters and charlatans trying to dupe the public into paying for useless care."
The public, meanwhile, seemed happy...
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