cover image Adjustments: The Making of a Chiropractor

Adjustments: The Making of a Chiropractor

Vince Joseph, Terry Cox. Hampton Roads Publishing Company, $9.95 (255pp) ISBN 978-1-878901-54-5

Dr. Joseph has a sense of timing, humor and drama in telling the story of his chiropractic practice. What he lacks is a sense of humility. The tales of his training and of patients he has treated are laced with frequent put-downs of mainstream medicine, experimental psychology and even patients (some of whom ``just don't want to get better''). He claims to have effected miracle cures for everything from impotence and infertility to Bell's Palsy; praises his own ability to diagnose ailments; and elevates himself above the law by performing acupuncture, although state law forbade him from doing so. His myopia even affects his private life--so obsessed is he with his fantasy of the ``perfect doctor's wife'' that he is unable to understand the needs of his flesh-and-blood wife. Both Joseph and his autobiography are most appealing when he recognizes his flaws and, when he serves as a reporter, observing his patients' lives (and deaths). Indeed the single most heartfelt anecdote relates his experiences treating the symptoms of an AIDS patient, largely because he confines himself to reporting that patient's comments. (Sept.)