cover image Alternatives in Healing

Alternatives in Healing

Simon Mills, Steven Finado. Dutton Books, $22.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-453-00629-3

``You'd better shop around'' is this guide's down-to-earth message. Coauthored by a medical herbalist and an holistic health specialist, it is likely to appeal to readers dissatisfied with Western medical orthodoxy. First explaining the concepts underlying allopathy (i.e., standard Western medicine), acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, homeopathy, medical herbalism and osteopathy/naturopathy, the authors then present case studies of a wide variety of medical problems followed by practitioners' descriptions of how these would be treated according to each discipline. Though even-handed assessment is the goal, inevitably the language of acupuncture comes to sound quaintly medieval; predictably, the general practitioner frequently resorts to antibiotics; and herbalistic and homeopathic treatments begin by restoring patient immunity worn down by years of antibiotic use. Thus, it is ironic that in severe illness (e.g., tuberculosis) the burden of cure falls squarely on orthodoxy, despite the lure of alternatives. (Jan.)