Chiropractors Curbed

The State of California licenses 10,859 doctors of medicine, 3,375 chiropractors. One out of five of the world's chiropractors presumably practices in California. This summer San Francisco's M. (for Michael) Jas. (for James) McGranaghan (for McGranahan) was therefore gambling the future of a large section of his profession when he went to court to compel a decision on what a California chiropractor might and might not do to another Californian's body.

One side of Michael McGranaghan's business card says M. Jas. McGranaghan, Chiropractor. On the other side it reads M. Jas. McGranaghan, Attorney at Law. He practices law from 9 to 12 each morning, chiropractic from 2 to 6 each afternoon, will take a case involving either profession at any hour. When he stops being a lawyer he lays aside his cigar, steps back of a curtain, puts on a black dressing gown edged with white.

Lawyer McGranaghan believed that Chiropractor McGranaghan's license to practice chiropractic permitted him to do practically everything to the human body except dose it with drugs or alter it by major surgery. To establish this belief in law, Chiropractor McGranaghan, having pretended he was sick, sued another, friendly chiropractor, Dora Berger, for refusing to give him anything more than spinal adjustment within the letter of the law. Chiropractor Berger behaved properly, decided the court, ruling against Chiropractor-Patient McGranaghan. Lawyer McGranaghan appealed.

Last week California's Superior Judge John J. Van Nostrand upheld the lower court. California chiropractors, declared he, have "no legal right to perform an operation upon the teeth of a patient or treat the eyes; no right to administer or prescribe medicines or drugs. While x-ray may be included for diagnosis or analysis, it cannot be used in the treatment of disease or illness. Such appliances or agencies as the chiropractic tables, hammer, towels or other instrumentalities which are clearly sanitary do not violate the statute, but the use of various therapeutic agencies, such as electro-therapeuty are embraced in the practice of medicine and therefore are forbidden to chiropractors."

In effect, Judge Van Nostrand told Lawyer McGranaghan that Chiropractor McGranaghan and his 3,374 California colleagues must stick strictly to manipulating spines. Pleased were all U. S. physicians and osteopaths.

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