A language barrier could deter some people from reaching their peak performance. But not Peruvian-born Henry Grant Higley, who spoke little English when he arrived in Southern California in the 1920s.

Despite this barrier, he became one of chiropractic’s first true scientists. His published works reveal his curiosity and expertise in many areas, including the outcomes of spinal manipulative therapy, the costs of chiropractic care, behavioral studies in criminal justice, investigations of physiological processes, educational testing and psychometrics, electronic information processing, diet and nutrition, x-ray and cineradiography and radionics instruments.

His work is noteworthy for his early use of inferential statistical methods and for his successful efforts to coordinate large-scale studies of patients receiving chiropractic care.

Born in Lima, Peru in 1903, Higley earned a degree in engineering from the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. In 1936 he was awarded the “DC” from the ultra-straight Ratledge College of Chiropractic in Los Angeles.

Higley later received master’s degrees from the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic (LACC) and the University of Nuevo Leon. He taught at his chiropractic alma mater until 1939, where he co-authored a textbook on chemistry for chiropractic students.

His life’s accomplishments were largely concentrated in education and research:

• Life-long chair of physiology and research. Higley joined the faculty of the ultra broad-scope Southern California College of Chiropractic and practiced in association with Helen Sanders, DC, co-inventor of Aquarian Age Healing. From 1947 until his death in 1969, Higley was chairman of the departments of physiology and research at the LACC. His engaging style of teaching is fondly remembered by many of the thousands of chiropractors he trained.

• Investigated spinal disorders through FACE. In 1959 FACE (The Foundation for Accredited Chiropractic Education, today’s Foundation for Chiropractic Education & Research — FCER) appointed Higley to chair its Research Advisory Committee and funded him to begin investigations on spinal disorders.

The National Chiropractic Association (NCA) had organized the Chiropractic Research Foundation as a non-profit philanthropic agency in 1944. Re-organized as FACE in 1958, its primary purpose was to upgrade the struggling chiropractic schools and achieve federal recognition through the U.S. Office of Education. This finally occurred 16 years after its formation. Throughout that time, however, FACE’s research mission was not neglected while USOE recognition was sought.

• Named FACE’s director of research. A few years later, Higley was named FACE’s director of research, a post that had been vacant since the late 1940s.

• Published landmark study. Higley produced his landmark study, The Intervertebral Disc Syndrome, which was published by the NCA in January 1960. It was a hit and received interdisciplinary and international attention for its thoroughness and meticulous attention to detail. This monograph was probably the first chiropractic literature to be indexed by the National Library of Medicine in its Index Medicus, a distinction rarely seen again until the 1981 inclusion of the Journal of Manipulative & Physiological Therapeutics in Index Medicus.

• Pioneered multi-campus research. As FACE’s research director, Higley pioneered multi-campus research at various chiropractic colleges. His published works attracted the attention of John Glover, MD, of the medical school at the University of Wales and the two clinical scientists met on the LACC campus in Glendale, Calif., in 1968. Glover subsequently published some of the earliest randomized, controlled clinical trials of spinal manipulation, although Higley would not live to see these.