Archive for May, 2013

Book Review: You’re Only Old Once! by Doctor Seuss

If laughter is the best medicine, then You’re Only Old Once! is a delightful new defense against aging. I highly recommend it for children from 7 to 70.

Anyone who has even submitted to a battery of medical tests will empathize with Dr. Seuss’ Everyman in this wry book. In it we follow our hapless hero through his checkup with the experts at the Golden Years Clinic, beginning with the waiting room and the atmosphere of tranquility it attempts to create. Once out of the waiting room and into the doctor’s domain, all of us can relate to our hero’s desire to escape:

And if you’re the type that gets finichy-finick
at this point you’ll try to get out of that clinic.
But they will outwit you as quick as a winick!
The Quiz-Does will catch you!
They’ll start questionnairing!
They’ll ask you, point blank how your parts are all faring.

Dr. Seuss parodies diagnostic drudgery, after which Everyman must sign on the dotted line.

When at last we are sure
you’ve been properly pilled,
then a few paper forms
must be properly filled
so that you and your heirs
may be properly billed.

As a prolific writer of children’s books, Dr. Seuss’ satiric social commentaries won him countless adult fans. You’re Only Young Once! was published on his 82nd birthday and is aptly described as a book for “obsolete children.”

In this age of highly technical and scientific methods, medical treatment is often reduced to impersonal finding and cold-handed prescription. My emphasis is to preserve the human element — thus are always willing to laugh at ourselves.

With Good Health,

Mark Saracino, DC, DACAN

Diplomat American Chiropractic Academy of Neurology


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