Chiropractic Trivia
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140 free Chiropractic trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free Chiropractic trivia questions with answers. Chiropractic began in 1895 when a magnetic healer in Davenport, Iowa adjusted the spine of a janitor who said he had been deaf for 17 years. This chiropractic trivia quiz covers what followed: D.D. Palmer and his son B.J., the Palmer School, the word's Greek roots, the jail sentences, the split between straights and mixers, the neurocalometer, the state-by-state fight for licensing from Kansas in 1913 to Louisiana in 1974, Medicare coverage in 1972, and the 1987 Wilk v. AMA antitrust ruling. It also covers how the profession works today: the Doctor of Chiropractic degree, the Council on Chiropractic Education, the Diversified and Activator techniques, what the World Health Organization says about safety, and where evidence for spinal manipulation is strong and weak. A final section covers the spine itself: 33 vertebrae, the atlas and axis, the sacrum and coccyx, and the nitrogen bubbles behind a cracking joint. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on chiropractic, the Palmers, joint cracking and the vertebral column. Suitable for a clinic open house, a health-class quiz or a pub round.
30 of 140 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Chiropractic's older rival, osteopathy, was founded by which frontier physician?
Andrew Taylor Still
Andrew Taylor Still turned against the medicine of his day after losing three of his children in an epidemic; he set out osteopathy's principles in 1874 and opened its first school at Kirksville in 1892.
Q 02In which Iowa city was chiropractic founded?
Davenport
Davenport is where Palmer kept his office in the Ryan Building on Brady Street; he opened his school there in 1897, and Palmer College's main campus has stayed in the city ever since.
Q 03Who was D.D. Palmer's first chiropractic patient, who said his hearing was restored?
Harvey Lillard
Harvey Lillard, the janitor in Palmer's building, said he had been deaf for 17 years, ever since injuring his back; Palmer worked on his spine and Lillard reported that he could hear again.
Q 04The word 'chiropractic' comes from Greek roots meaning what?
Done by hand
Done by hand is the loose sense of the Greek cheir, hand, plus praktikos, practical. 'Surgeon' grew from the same root: the Greek kheirourgos was someone working by hand.
Q 05What was D.D. Palmer's occupation before he founded chiropractic?
Magnetic healer
Magnetic healer was his trade for nine years: he treated the sick by laying on hands, and chiropractic began as an extension of that practice once he turned to manipulating the spine.
Q 06In which country was D.D. Palmer born?
Canada
Canada was Palmer's home for his first 20 years: born in Ontario in 1845, he emigrated in 1865 and taught school in Illinois for several years before moving on to Iowa.
Q 07From whom did D.D. Palmer claim to have 'received' chiropractic?
A dead doctor's spirit
A dead doctor's spirit, Palmer said: the idea reached him at a spiritualist seance from Dr. Jim Atkinson, a physician who had died 50 years earlier.
Q 08What name is given to pain that runs from the spine down the back of one leg?
Sciatica
Sciatica is named for the sciatic nerve, the largest in the body. It usually strikes one side only and often clears up by itself, so time is frequently the only treatment needed.
Q 09What is the vitalist life force that early chiropractors believed flowed through the nervous system?
Innate Intelligence
Innate Intelligence was Palmer's name for a vital, intelligent energy that he said ran the body through the nerves; block its flow at the spine, he reasoned, and disease would follow.
Q 10What term did Palmer use for the spinal misalignments he believed interfered with the body's function?
Subluxation
Subluxation in ordinary medicine means a partial dislocation that shows on imaging. Palmer's version was a slight misalignment said to disturb the nerves, which chiropractic's own researchers have called unproven dogma.
Q 11D.D. Palmer was slow to teach chiropractic to outsiders, fearing what?
Stolen ideas
Stolen ideas was the worry: he hoped to keep the method in the family, took his first student only in 1898, and for the next few years taught just one, two or three at a time.
Q 12After losing a court case in Iowa in 1906, D.D. Palmer chose what?
Jail rather than a fine
Jail rather than a fine was Palmer's choice, though the fine was paid after some weeks inside. He then passed the school to his son and went west to start new schools.
Q 13What did D.D. Palmer's estate claim had struck him at a parade in 1913?
A car driven by his son B.J.
Q 21What did the American Medical Association label chiropractic in 1966?
An unscientific cult
An unscientific cult was the label in the AMA's 1966 resolution, and it had teeth: the association's ethics code made it unethical for doctors to associate with chiropractors until the rule was dropped in 1980.
Q 22Which antitrust case, decided in 1987, found that the AMA had conspired against chiropractors?
Wilk v. AMA
Wilk v. AMA was filed in 1976 by Chicago chiropractor Chester Wilk and colleagues. After a first verdict for the AMA, an appeal and a retrial, a federal judge ruled in 1987 that the boycott was an unlawful restraint of trade.
Q 23Which body accredits chiropractic schools in the United States?
A car driven by his son B.J. was the estate's claim, but an eyewitness said the old man had merely stumbled, grand juries refused to charge B.J., and the lawsuit was withdrawn.
Q 14What is the anatomical name for the tailbone at the very base of the spine?
Coccyx
Coccyx is the small bone, usually four fused vertebrae, that takes your weight when you sit down, which is why a fall onto it is such a common and lingering injury.
Q 15What diagnostic technology did B.J. Palmer endorse in 1910, prompting a faculty exodus from his school?
X-rays
X-rays split the profession: B.J. built an X-ray laboratory at the school and coined the word 'spinograph' for its pictures, while those who objected walked out and competing schools sprang up.
Q 16What was the neurocalometer, B.J. Palmer's controversial 1924 invention?
A temperature-sensing device
Even fellow straights objected to it. The Activator technique's spring-loaded tool and the Thompson drop table came later.
Q 17Which future president got his first broadcasting job at B.J. Palmer's radio station WOC?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan joined WOC as a sportscaster fresh out of college in 1932. B.J. Palmer had bought the station a decade earlier and used it to market chiropractic alongside farm, sports and weather reports.
Q 18Which was the first US state to pass a chiropractic licensing law, in 1913?
Kansas
Kansas led the way after chiropractors, prosecuted in their thousands for unlicensed practice, campaigned for licensing laws of their own; the last state did not follow for another six decades.
Q 19Which was the last state to license chiropractors, in 1974?
Louisiana
Louisiana became the fiftieth state to license chiropractors in 1974, ending a campaign for separate licensing laws that had begun six decades earlier amid mass prosecutions for unlicensed practice.
Q 20Which US federal programme pays chiropractors only for manipulating the spine?
Medicare
Medicare has covered chiropractic since the early 1970s, but only manual manipulation of the spine: tests, massage or acupuncture ordered by a chiropractor are left for the patient to pay.
Council on Chiropractic Education
Council on Chiropractic Education is the accreditor the US Department of Education recognises, a status first won in 1974 that made chiropractic students eligible for federal loans.
Q 24Which US state was first to let 'advanced practice' chiropractors prescribe certain medications?
New Mexico
New Mexico is the exception to the rule that US chiropractors cannot prescribe: those holding its advanced-practice certificate, with credentials from the state pharmacy board, may order certain medications.
Q 25What is the most common reason people seek chiropractic care?
Low back pain
Low back pain is also where the evidence is least thin: reviews find spinal manipulation may help it, while support for treating conditions beyond the spine is lacking.
Q 26The word 'vertebra' is traced to the Latin verb vertere, which means what?
To turn
To turn is the sense of vertere. Dictionaries trace 'vertebra' to it, perhaps because the Romans pictured the spine as the hinge on which the body turns.
Q 27Which adjusting method uses a small spring-loaded tool to deliver precise thrusts?
Activator
Activator swaps the manual thrust for a quick, light tap from a hand-held instrument, and practitioners compare the patient's leg lengths before and after to judge whether it worked.
Q 28What is the most widely used chiropractic adjusting method?
Diversified
Diversified is not one inventor's branded system but an eclectic mix drawn from several schools: the chiropractor gives a short, quick thrust by hand over a stiff joint to free its movement.
Q 29The spray of nerve roots at the bottom of the spine is named in Latin after which animal's tail?
A horse
A horse's tail is what cauda equina means in Latin: the nerve roots trailing down inside the lower spine are named for their resemblance to its long strands of hair.
Q 30What is the name for a sideways curve of the spine that most often appears between ages 10 and 15?
Scoliosis
Scoliosis is rarely a sign of anything serious. Mild curves usually need no treatment at all, only checks to see that they do not worsen while the child is still growing.