Don Quixote's Hammer

What if cancer wasn't, as scientific consensus holds, a case of errant genes or recalcitrant cells? What if there was a problem in the body's wiring, an electrical issue that hobbled the impulse transmitted from the brain to the organ, disrupting internal balance, and initiating disease? More than 40 years ago, Tom Tam, then a newly minted acupuncturist who passed the state licensing exam without ever having entered a classroom, was asking this question. Don Quixote's Hammer: Tapping into the Healing Power of the Nervous System is the story of what happened next.

Hattie Bernstein is a journalist who has written for newspapers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Indiana. She has been a contributor to The Boston Globe, a freelancer for The New York Times, and was the recipient of the third national Media Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism. Her RSA acceptance speech was published in the clinical journal Alcoholism.