J. Stuart Moore. 228 pages. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1993. $34.95.
New and inveterate cults are blooming, alternative approaches to medicine and life abound, bookstores fill shelves with New Age publications, and philosophers prefer "common sense" and convoluted literary theories to mathematical logic and epistemology. We play more Nintendo and Dungeons and Dragons and less chess. Old Goya wrote on one of his eerie etchings: "When reason sleeps, monsters appear." Nevertheless, only few of us seem worried. After all, New Age books have colorful covers, and alternative therapy usually costs insurance companies less than the super-technologic procedures of "established," "mainstream" medicine.
Thus, a history of one of the more widespread alternative approaches to healing is welcome. We are guided through the early period of chiropractic, with the turbulent and apparently intolerant figures of the two Palmers, the founding fathers of the theory that all diseases are caused by misalignment of the spinal column. As convincing and consistent as mesmerism of older days, the theory of chiropractic remains, to me at least, suspended in the realm of belief and dogma, but one cannot exclude the possibility that this theory, modified and altered, one day may be enough to become understandable in the framework of general biology.
Professor Moore subsequently describes how chiropractors have gained rather wide acceptance in society, mainly through licensing legislature and adoption of some of the basic sciences into the curriculum of training. In patients with musculoskeletal, spinal-cord-centered diseases, usually of a chronic and not well-described but nonetheless very real nature, the experience and practice of chiropractors may be of advantage. The likelihood of giving the disease time to heal itself has perhaps more chances in the chiropractor's office than in the high-tech environment of "mainstream" medicine. This academically acceptable aspect of chiropractic could be developed further.
Chiropractic in America is likely to facilitate the needed dialogues between mainstream medicine and chiropractic and between society and "healers" of all sects. However, it is only a broad overview. What is most needed is a thorough discussion of controlled studies on the efficiency of the chiropractors' manipulations and other therapies. In addition, potential dangers of manipulations should be scrutinized. Another likely negative effect of chiropractic may stem from manipulations that deprive or delay access of patients with life-threatening diseases to available, proven health care modalities.
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