cover image Sensible Living: Winning Your Fight Against Arthritis

Sensible Living: Winning Your Fight Against Arthritis

Virgil Harbert. William Morrow & Company, $15.95 (143pp) ISBN 978-0-688-07821-8

Arthritis first strikes an injured joint, and the case of Harbert, a retired farmer, was no exception. He damaged his knees during paratrooper training in World War II; then, after his discharge and return to farming in South Dakota in 1945, crippling arthritis struck. The book chronicles Harbert's wartime wounds, his 20-year battle with the illness and his consequent depression. But the victim resolved to fight back, and also tells that story. He taught exercise classes to senior citizens, adapted these to the needs of arthritics (incorporating jokes and ``painless exercise routines'' as part of the therapy) and distributed videotapes of his program. Into 160 pages Harbert crams an eclectic mix of religious and medical evangelism, prairie wisdom, exercises, diets and corny humorwith a sense of exhilaration in a mission completed. (Nov.)