Carver Chiropractic College. Vertebral adjusting by specific intention, was discovered at Davenport, Iowa, on September 15, 1895, by D. D. Palmer, a magnetic healer.

The system of vertebral adjusting devised by him at that time was named chiropractic, meaning, “done with the hand.” The science of chiropractic was not then in existence and was not in existence for ten years subsequent thereto.

Willard Carver, LL. B., D. C., now president of Carver Chiropractic College at Oklahoma City, is the constructor and formulator of the Science of Chiropractic. He began the study in December, 1895, and it came into existence in permanent form with the publication in a concise and organized treatise of “Carver’s Chiropractic Analysis,” published in Oklahoma City in December, 1909. The basic principle of the science is that interference with the transmission of nerve stimulus causes all functional abnormality. The science and art of chiropractic consists in adjusting displaced or disrelated tissue to remove interference with the transmission of nerve stimulus. It is purely mechanical and is connected in no way with therapy, being based upon an entirely different law than osteopathy, magnetic healing, massage, etc., and has nothing in common with medicine and surgery.

Willard Carver was born at Maysville, Scott County, Iowa, July 14, 1866, but two years later his parents, John Waterman and Eliza M. (Nutting) Carver, moved to Mahaska County in the same state, two and a half miles from Agricola. There on the farm of his father Doctor Carver was reared to the age of eighteen. His education was obtained by attending a country school a mile and three-quarters distant from home during the winter months. The remainder of the year was spent in farm labor. In the spring of the year which marked his eighth birthday he drove a team at putting in the crops and from that time was reckoned as a regular hand about the farm. He early evinced a disposition to find out why certain animals had died, and because of his many post-mortems and the general care of the health of the stock he was soon dubbed “Doctor” by his brothers and sisters. In 1884, at the age of eighteen, a broader horizon of opportunity was opened to him when he entered the Oskaloosa College at Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he was to remain to complete the course of two years. Then followed two years of school teaching, after which he entered the Drake University at Des Moines, and at the end of three years was graduated with the degree of LL.B and at once took up the practice of law. From 1891 until 1905, Doctor Carver was a practicing lawyer in Iowa, enjoyed a large practice and left the profession only to take up the still greater and broader field to which he had already given years of study.

In December, 1895, he began the study of chiropractic, and in 1897 began lecturing upon that subject throughout Iowa and the states adjoining and writing for magazines that would permit a publication with reference to the subject. Many of these articles appeared in the “ Chiropractor,” a journal published at that time in Davenport. In this manner he became generally known as an authority on chiropractic many years before he entered a school for the purpose of studying the “Art of Adjusting.” Finally in 1905 he entered the Parker School of Chiropractic at Ottumwa, Iowa, and finished the course the following June. Since then he has devoted his time exclusively to lecturing upon chiropractic, teaching it to classes, writing text books on the science and practicing the profession.

In 1906 Doctor Carver came to Oklahoma City and with Dr. L. L. Denny organized and incorporated the present college under the name “Carver-Denny Chiropractic College.” In 1908 Doctor Denny went to California, and was succeeded by Dr. A. C. McColl, at which time the name of the college was amended to its present form. Carver Chiropractic College. This college was started with the idea of establishing in the South an institution solely devoted to the teaching and propagation of simon-pure chiropractic. It was located at Oklahoma City in order to get away from the territory of all other schools that had then been established.

Since the organization of the Carver College it has had the longest course and the most extensive curriculum of any school of chiropractic. Its first class comprised fifteen students, while the student body now regularly numbers into the second hundred. The Carver College has never made a bid for the largest student body, but has been particular in the selection of the character of its students.

In 1906, at the time of the college’s incorporation, the science of chiropractic had never been formulated and what was known of it was taught by word of mouth, and indeed there was very little known. In his work as dean .and instructor, Doctor Carver rapidly developed the science of chiropractic, and presented it to the world for the first time in his “Analysis,” published in 1909. No other work is in print at this time which assumes to give the science of chiropractic, all other books on the subject being devoted to the “Science and Art of Adjusting.” The revision of the analysis (1915) brings its scientific phases down to date and is comprehensive of the subject.

Doctor Carver is president and dean of the faculty of the college and has been such since its organization. The faculty is composed of men and women of his personal standing and ability who are constantly making many sacrifices in order that the science of chiropractic may come into its own. The school now has an international reputation and is an institution of which all citizens of Oklahoma are justly proud.

When Doctor Carver came to Oklahoma there existed a very drastic law prohibiting any practice except medicine. In the first legislature of the state, after an instructive and ably conducted fight, Doctor Carver procured the repeal of the existing law and the enactment of a statute permitting the practice of chiropractic in Oklahoma. For the first time there was placed in statutory law a definition defining the practice of medicine to be the prescription and administration of medicine and that only. Doctor Carver, while succeeding to this extent in securing a fair definition of the practice of medicine and securing a recognition for chiropractic, also sought at that legislature to have a law passed regulating the practice of chiropractic. But on account of adverse factions and bitter opposition of the medical organizations he did not succeed. Since then he has continued the effort and has expended about six thousand dollars out of his own pocket for the accomplishment of this purpose. It is believed that the present legislature of 1917 will finally pass a law substantially ;is it was first drawn up by Doctor Carver in 1907.

Doctor Carver is a member of the Federated Chiropractic Associations of the United States of North America; a member of the Oklahoma State Association of Doctors of Chiropractic; a member of the organized alumni of the Carver Chiropractic College, in which association he is president of the advisory board and membership committee, and also editor of the Chiropractic Record, a magazine published by that association. He was the organizer of these different associations. He was president of the advisory board of the Oklahoma Chiropractic Association from its inception in 1907 until 1910, when the association went out of existence to permit the organization of the above named association. Doctor Carver has the distinction of having been one of the first delegates of the new State of Oklahoma to the International Tuberculosis Congress in 1908, and the first member of his school of doctors to receive official recognition or appointment for any purpose whatever.

In addition to numerous literary articles on chiropractic, Doctor Carver is author and publisher of Carver’s Chiropractic Analysis, 1909; Applied Psychology, 1914; and Carver’s Chiropractic Analysis, revised 1915. He is president of the D. D. Palmer Memorial Hospital and its consultant doctor. For years he has served as legislative counsel for the chiropractors of Oklahoma and counsel for many state associations. he was attorney for the Chiropractor Association of Kansas in its mandamus of Governor Hodges, and is almost constantly engaged in the defense of chiropractors who are being persecuted by legal prosecution in different parts of the country.

In 1893 Doctor Carver married Clara Beatrice Blain of Montezuma, Iowa. She died in 1895, leaving a son, Ronald L. Carver. In 1897 he married Miss Ida Mae Smith of McGregor, Iowa, at Spirit Lake, Iowa. His home is at 419 West 29th Street, Oklahoma City, and the offices of the college are in the Majestic Building.