A Profession of One's Own: Organized Medicine's Opposition to Chiropractic (review)

Susan L. Smith-Cunnien. A Profession of One's Own: Organized Medicine's Opposition to Chiropractic. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998. xii + 208 pp. $43.50.

In this volume Susan Smith-Cunnien applies Emile Durkheim's theory that a group's reactions to deviants can be intended at least as much to strengthen and differentiate the group as to exclude or eliminate the deviants. Using a tabulation of all items about chiropractic published in the Journal of the American Medical Association after 1907, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal/New England Journal of Medicine after 1915, and several other medical journals, she finds three major periods of opposition to chiropractic by organized medicine. From 1908 to 1924, "chiropractic provided an impetus for medical unity, a foil for the development of medicine's professional identity, and a way to demonstrate superiority" (p. 30). From 1925 to 1960, opposition to chiropractic diminished because of the "increasingly dominant position of organized medicine" (p. 80), despite the gradual increase in the number of chiropractors. From 1961 to 1976, organized medicine was under attack for opposing Medicare, more medical school graduates, and HMOs, and the AMA was experiencing internal factionalism and membership and financial difficulties. A renewed opposition to chiropractic enabled organized medicine "to reaffirm its commitment to public service and reassert its collective identity and image" (p. 104). Currently, both organized medicine and chiropractic want freedom of choice for patients, suggesting a potential confluence of interests.

This lucidly structured monograph provides a useful instance of the advantages of a theoretical framework in research on medical history.

William G. Rothstein
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

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