An eye-opening but heavy-handed look at the medical profession from a doctor who turned his back on its standard practices.
In an essay collection that’s part memoir, part homeopathy textbook, a doctor embraces the ideals of patient-centered treatment and attacks hallmarks of traditional medicine, including vaccination.
As a medical student in the 1960s, Moskowitz never intended to pursue holistic medicine—at the time, few American doctors had even heard the term—but he quickly grew disenchanted with the approaches he encountered in the established medical community. Doctors, he felt, tended to see their patients as manifestations of disease rather than as people. They treated illness as an invader to be beaten into submission, not as a natural part of life. He happened upon homeopathy partly by accident, when a patient asked him to help her give birth at home. Away from the sterile, highly regulated hospital environment, he was able to let the patient be her own guide, and he assisted her only minimally. The appeal of this approach led him to embrace homeopathy and its mission to promote self-healing. The collection’s first essay offers an illuminating look at what drew him to this approach, but later essays appear to be meant for a more specialized audience. Some first appeared in homeopathy journals and require more than a layman’s familiarity with the field; others list recommended remedies for common disorders affecting pregnant women and infants, which may not interest some readers. Repetition plagues the later chapters, with many essays addressing the same themes, sometimes verbatim. The overall tone may be off-putting to readers who don’t share the author’s disdain for traditional medicine, which Moskowitz accuses of being “driven mainly to achieve effective control and dominion over every identifiable aspect of the life process,” calling its proponents “smug” and “self-righteous.” His invective against vaccination, in particular, which he blames for the proliferation of chronic ailments from ear infections to epilepsy to autism, will likely challenge the views of average consumers of Western medicine.
An eye-opening but heavy-handed look at the medical profession from a doctor who turned his back on its standard practices.Pub Date: June 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482338010
Page Count: 408
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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