There are no animals sitting in Dr. Jamie L. Higley's family chiropractic clinic in Powhatan County waiting to have their bones adjusted.

But his newest patients do have four legs. They're horses. Higley goes to houses, barns and stables in this pastoral county, which had 2,100 horses valued at $17.5 million in 2001, according to the Virginia Agricultural Statistics Service in Richmond.

He works by referrals from veterinarians, finding misalignments and adjusting bones that are out of position. This isn't the latest in pet spoiling; it's serious business. Riders know when a horse's bones are out of position, he said. They feel it in the gait, or the horse will not take a lead.

A variety of horses

Some are competition horses. Others are racehorses. When the bones are improperly aligned, it can shave precious seconds off performances or cripple chances of placing well in competitions.

Animal chiropractics, which Higley got into recently after patients kept asking if he does it, is lucrative, he said. "You don't have insurance to deal with. That's always a plus."

But it's humans, not horses, that fill his clinic on Anderson Highway in the Food Lion mall at Academy Road. From a 3-day-old baby to a 90-year-old man, "and everybody in between," he adjusts the bones and brings nerve relief to people who drag in feeling miserable from headaches and migraines, neck and back pain, pinched nerves, injuries from accidents and falls, sciatica, carpal-tunnel syndrome and slipped vertebrae.

Has aspects of a hobby

The relief that his trained hands bring to suffering patients - and his camaraderie with them, listening to their small-town talk about soccer practice and such - make his practice feel more like a hobby, he said, than a job.

"I don't consider it a job to make people feel better every day," he said.

Higley is one of 1,306 licensed chiropractors in Virginia, the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards said.

But he doesn't fill up his patient roster by running print ads in local newspapers. He uses old-fashioned shoe leather to promote the practice. A master self-promoter, Higley, or his business cards, turn up in stores all around town, at Powhatan Chamber of Commerce meetings, health and wellness fairs, crafts fairs, an tiques shows, on the editorial page of the local newspaper, at horse shows and 4-H events.

In November, he held a food drive and raised about $300 and "quite a bit of canned food" for the needy. Everybody who brought five canned goods to his clinic got a free chiropractic treatment.

"My main goal is to be in front of people at all times," he said. "I give people information. Maybe they don't need me now, but three months from now they may fall down and hurt themselves. Then, they will remember me" and come for treatment to the chiropractor who lives in and supports the county.

Higley's ubiquity does not go unnoticed.

"You can't go to anything in Powhatan that Jamie Higley doesn't have a booth there," said Ruth Boatwright, president of the Powhatan Chamber of Commerce. "He's been in the county a very long time."

Recently, Higley has seen disturbing new injury trends. "I'm seeing a lot of children with backpack problems," he said. The ton of books they tote around at school, and then bring home each night, wreak havoc on their backs. Predictably, with the rise in computer use, carpal tunnel is on the rise, too, he said.

Another trend, a good one for the chiropractic industry, is the continuing nationwide shift to alternative care, including chiropractics.

Jerome McAndrews, a doctor of chiropractic and the national spokesman for the American Chiropractic Association in Arlington, said 80 percent of health-maintenance organizations have a chiropractic benefit and 92 percent of preferred-provider organizations do. "That 92 percent was 74 percent in 1996," he said.

But instead of referring patients to chiropractors for effective noninvasive treatment of back injuries, medical gatekeepers send them to orthopedic surgeons, he said. "There are competitive issues here."

Those issues are not such a problem at Higley's practice in Powhatan. "I don't get a ton of referrals from medical doctors," he said. "But, the ones I do, they understand what I do. I even treat a medical doctor."

The annoyance Higley deals with is the perception some people still hold that chiropractics is quackery. "I still get the quack remarks," he said.

A personal encounter with chiropractics as a youngster set Higley's mind to pursue that as a career. He dislocated his shoulder during a field day in junior high school. Afterward, his father took him to a chiropractor.

"I remember seeing grown men crawling in, crying, going out with a smile," he said. "I said, 'Wow, I want to be part of that.'"

Higley said he intends to keep his practice small - maybe expand it a little down the road, bring on an associate, buy an X-ray machine so he doesn't have to lose that lucrative business to referrals, and move into a larger, 3,000-square-foot building. He already has diversified the business by bringing on a massage therapist, Shawn Marie Kelley. She works the muscles and trigger points; he adjusts the bones. Their services complement each other.

But not all of his newest patients are appreciative. One hyper horse tried to give him a kick or two, he said. "I adjusted the bone in his neck and calmed him down. The rest of the time he was wonderful."