Editing Albert Abrams (section)

==Practice==
===Heidelberg doctorate claim===
Abrams was accused of fraudulently claiming a medical qualification from the [[University of Heidelberg]];<ref>[http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/ History of Stanford medical school and predecessors] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060214023220/http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/ |date=2006-02-14 }} : [http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/html/chap26/chap26-sect6.html Chapter 26] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110051905/http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/html/chap26/chap26-sect6.html |date=2013-11-10 }} Wilson</ref> however, documents from Archive of University Heidelberg confirm that Albert Abrams received a medical degree there on 21 November 1882.<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M.D._Certificate_of_Albert_Abrams_from_Ruprecht-Karls-Universit%C3%A4t_Heidelberg,_21.11.1882.jpg Certificate of Doctors Degree, Albert Abrams, University of Heidelberg, 1882].</ref>

In Abrams' view, American medicine was dominated by physicians with excessive admiration for German doctors and researchers. In earlier writings, he insulted physicians by calling them "Dr. Hades" or "Dr. Inferior", by comparing their looks to typhoid and other [[Microorganism|germs]], and by making fun of various abstruse therapies that at the time were considered "scientific" by the medical establishment. In a poem that he wrote on balloon therapy, for instance, the doctors take their patients up in the air but do not know how to bring the balloon down again. The poem ends with the lines: "But they never came back. That's why we confess / Aëronautic therapy is not a success."<ref>Albert Abrams: ''Transactions of the Antiseptic Club'', E. B. Treat, New York 1895</ref>

===Spondylotherapy===
Abrams developed a medical technique called spondylotherapy, which was inspired by [[chiropractic]] and [[osteopathy|osteopathic]] ideas. The basic principle is the stimulation of nerves originating from the spinal cord, which can trigger [[reflex]] actions on [[viscera]] or inner organs. The stimulation is performed by controlled concussion with a plexor / [[pleximeter]] combination directly on the [[spinous process]]es, by sinusoidal electric currents or by application of ice. Abrams published the book ''Spondylotherapy'' in several editions between 1910 and 1918.<ref>{{cite book |title=Spondylotherapy |author=Albert Abrams |year=1910 |publisher=Philopolis Press |url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7722659W/Spondylotherapy_Physio_and_Pharmaco-therapy_and_Diagnostic_Methods_Based_on_.. }}</ref> A simplified version of spondylotherapy was first published by Alva Emeey Gregory, M.D. in 1914.<ref>{{cite book |title=Spondylotherapy simplified  |author= Alva Emeey Gregory, M.D. |year=1922 |publisher= Alva Emeey Gregory, M.D. |url= https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7759351W/Spondylotherapy_simplified }}</ref>