Manual medicine is as old as the science and art of medicine itself. Spinal manipulation in manual medicine is widely used as a treatment modality for spinal disorders. But one of the problems as perceived by the medical profession is that the therapy is often treated as a business rather than a science. In addition, its reputation has been blurred by some of its advocates claiming far too much for its effectiveness and using it as a panacea. Another observation is that many patients have been subjected to a prolonged and failed trial of spinal manipulation. It was written with one purpose in mind. The purpose is to give a basic overview of the present day practice and scope of the field of manual medicine. If, in addition, the information thus provided helps reduce certain existing prejudices toward this field.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of spinal manipulation for the patients with acute low back pain.

Method: Twenty patients with acute low back pain have been received spinal manipulation 3 times per week. The 10-point scale and the distance of the fingertips from the floor on maximum forward flexion (fingertip-flexion test) were checked pretreatment, immediately posttreatment, 2 days posttreatment, 1 week posttreatment, and 2 weeks posttreatment.

Results: The results were as follows: 1) The 10-point scale at pretreatment, immediately posttreatment, 2 days posttreatment, 1 week posttreatment, and 2 weeks post-treatment were 10.0⁑0.0, 5.8⁑1.4, 2.2⁑1.0, 1.1⁑0.2, and 1.0⁑0.0, respectively (P＜0.01). 2) The fingertip-flexion test at pretreatment, immediately posttreatment, 2 days posttreatment, 1 week posttreatment, 2 weeks posttreatment were 35.4⁑8.4 cm, 22.4⁑7.0 cm, 14.1⁑4.9 cm, 7.4⁑3.6 cm, and 5.4⁑4.6 cm, respectively (P＜0.01).

Conclusion: In our study, the spinal manipulation for the patients with acute low back pain offered significant efficacy and appeared to be a reasonable therapeutic option. But the effectiveness of this method leaves a critical aspect that should be dealt with in future studies.