Book
Quackery : a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything
Publication Information
New York : Workman Publishing, [2017]
Physical Description
viii, 344 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm
Summary
"What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine--yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison--was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices. Ranging from the merely weird to the outright dangerous, here are dozens of outlandish, morbidly hilarious 'treatments'--conceived by doctors and scientists, by spiritualists and snake oil salesmen (yes, they literally tried to sell snake oil)--that were predicated on a range of cluelessness, trial and error, and straight-up scams. With vintage illustrations, photographs, and advertisements throughout, Quackery seamlessly combines macabre humor with science and storytelling to reveal an important and disturbing side of the ever-evolving field of medicine"--
Contents
- Elements: prescriptions from the periodic table
- Antimony
- Mercury
- Arsenic
- Radium
- Gold
- The women's health hall of shame
- Plants & soil: nature's gifts
- Opiates
- Strychnine
- Tobacco
- Cocaine
- Alcohol
- Earth
- The antidotes hall of shame
- Tools: slicing, dicing, dousing & draining
- Bloodletting
- Lobotomy
- Cautery & blistering
- Enemas
- Hydrotherapy
- Surgery
- Anesthesia
- The men's health hall of shame
- Animals: creepy crawlies, corpses, and the healing power of the human body
- Leeches
- Cannibalism & corpse medicine
- Animal-derived medicines
- Sex
- Fasting
- The weight loss hall of shame
- Mysterious powers: waves, rays, and curious airs
- Electricity
- Animal magnetism
- Light
- Radionics
- The king's touch
- The eye care hall of shame
- The cancer cure hall of shame.