Origins of Naprapathy

NAPRAPATHY (nah-prah’-pathy)

Napravit (Czech) = to correct

Pathos (Greek) = suffering

Naprapathy = to correct suffering

Naprapathy is a health care specialty that utilizes non-invasive, manual manipulation for the long-term management of pain. Naprapathy’s effectiveness stems from the fundamental theory that the origin of pain is rooted in the link between connective tissue and the surrounding nerve receptors.

How Naprapathy Started

Naprapathy’s foundations as a medical specialty and treatment began in Chicago in 1907. The founder, Dr. Oakley Smith, had traveled to Czechoslovakia where he found practitioners who were providing pain relief to patients through manual therapies. These techniques were similar in style to chiropractic treatments, but addressed a fundamentally different system of the body.

Dr. Smith developed his own theory to explain the systemic causes of pain that more closely aligned with the napravit techniques he found in Czechoslovakia than with the chiropractic techniques he learned in the United States. Dr. Smith saw a connection between damaged connective tissue and the surrounding nerve receptors. His theory lead to the technique of connective tissue manipulation to achieve long-lasting pain relief.

Today, naprapathy includes not only the manual manipulations developed by Dr. Smith, but also additional modalities of treatment, nutritional counseling and patient education.