Quackery

Quackery PDF Author: Lydia Kang
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
ISBN: 1523501855
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
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.

Quackery

Quackery PDF Author: Lydia Kang
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
ISBN: 1523501855
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Health for Sale

Health for Sale PDF Author: Roy Porter
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719019036
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description


American Health Quackery

American Health Quackery PDF Author: James Harvey Young
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400862914
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
James Harvey Young, the foremost expert on the history of medical frauds, finds quackery in the 1990s to be more extensive and insidious than in earlier and allegedly more naive eras. The modern quack isn't an outrageous-looking hawker of magic remedies operating from the back of a carnival wagon, but he knows how to use antiregulatory sentiment and ingenious promotional approaches to succeed in a "trade" that is both bizarre and deceitful. In The Toadstool Millionaires and The Medical Messiahs, Young traced the history of health quackery in America from its colonial roots to the late 1960s. This collection of essays discusses more recent health scams and reconsiders earlier ones. Liberally illustrated with examples of advertising for patent medicines and other "alternative therapies," the book links evolving quackery to changing currents in the scientific, cultural, and governmental environment. Young describes varieties of quackery, like frauds related to the teeth, nostrums aimed at children, and cure-all gadgets with such names as Electreat Mechanical Heart. The case of Laetrile illustrates how an alleged vitamin for controlling cancer could be ballyhooed and lobbied into a national mania, half the states passing laws giving the cyanide-containing drug some special status. And AIDS is the most recent example of an illness that, tragically, has panicked some of its victims and members of the general public into putting their hopes in fake cures and preventives. Young discusses the complex question of vulnerability--why people fall victim to health fraud--and considers the difficulties confronting governmental regulators. From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, the annual quackery toll has escalated from two billion to over twenty-five billion dollars. Young helps us discover why. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Golden Age of Quackery

The Golden Age of Quackery PDF Author: Stewart H. Holbrook
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Quacks and quackery
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description


The Quack Doctor

The Quack Doctor PDF Author: Caroline Rance
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750951834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
From the harangues of charlatans to the sophisticated advertising of the Victorian era, quackery sports a colourful history. Featuring entertaining advertisements from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book investigates the inventive ways in which quack remedies were promoted – and suggests that the people who bought them should not be written off as gullible after all. There’s the Methodist minister and his museum of intestinal worms, the obesity cure that turned fat into sweat, and the device that brought the fresh air of Italy into British homes. The story of quack advertising is bawdy, gruesome, funny and sometimes moving – and in this book it takes to the stage to promote itself as a fascinating part of the history of medicine.

Nostrums and Quackery

Nostrums and Quackery PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description


Quacks

Quacks PDF Author: Roy Porter
Publisher: Tempus Publishing, Limited
ISBN: 9780752425900
Category : Medicine
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This illustrated history of quack doctors in their heyday of the 17th and 18th centuries looks at the various treatments and diagnostic methods used.

The Health Robbers

The Health Robbers PDF Author: Stephen Barrett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
And it answers such questions as: "Are 'organic' foods worth their extra cost?" "Can acupuncture cure anything?" "Will vitamin B[subscript 12] shots pep me up?" "Can diet cure arthritis?" "Will spinal adjustments help my health?" "Will amino acids 'pump up' my muscles?" "Where can reliable information be obtained?" and "What's the best way to get good medical care?" Even if the answers to some of these questions seem obvious, the details in this volume, written in an informative, highly readable, and easy-to-understand style, will astound you. Quackery often leads to harm because it turns ill people away from legitimate and trusted therapeutic procedures. However, its heaviest toll is in financial loss not only to those who pay directly, but to everyone who pays for bogus treatments through taxes, insurance premiums, and other ways that are less obvious.

Quackery

Quackery PDF Author: Tony Robertson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781784554545
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this book Tony Robertson exposes the myth that is the efficacy of alternative medicine. Why does the NHS include homeopathy in its prescribable drugs? Why are people allowed to go to malarial countries with the only protection advised by homeopaths being salt tablets? People die, people are not cured, no verifiable efficacy of alternative medicine is produced, and yet homeopathic 'cures' across the range of ailments and promoted by notable figures such as Prince Charles, continue to be sold.In Quackery, The 20 Million Dollar Duck, Tony Robertson examines the claims of alternative therapies such as acupuncture: can it really stop smoking addiction, enable surgery to be carried out without anaesthetic, cure hearing loss ...' Unsurprisingly data for 'miracle' cures and therapies is thin on the ground. For a full exposé of the dangers of 'quackery' this book is a must.

The Medical Messiahs

The Medical Messiahs PDF Author: James Harvey Young
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400868696
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
James Harvey Young describes the development of patent medicines in America from the enactment in 1906 of the Pure Food and Drugs Act through the mid-1960s. Many predicted that the Pure Food and Drugs Act would be the end of harmful nostrums, but Young describes in colorful detail post-Act cases involving manufacturers and promoters of such products as Cuforhedake Brane-Fude, B. & M. "tuberculosis-curing" liniment, and the dangerous reducing pill Marmola. We meet, among others, the brothers Charles Frederick and Peter Kaadt, who treated diabetic patients with a mixture of vinegar and saltpeter; Louisiana state senator Dudley J. LeBlanc, who put on fabulous medicine shows as late as the 1950s promoting Hadacol and his own political career, and Adolphus Hohensee, whose lectures on nutrition provide a classic example of the continuing appeal of food faddism. Review: "The Medical Messiahs is an example of historical writing at its best—scholarly, perceptive, and exceedingly readable. Despite his objectivity, Young's dry humor shines through and illuminates his entire book."—John Duffy, Journal of Southern History "This book is written in tight, graceful prose that reflects thought rather than substitutes for it. Done with a sure feel for the larger political, social, and economic background, it demonstrates that historians who would make socially relevant contributions need only adhere to the best canons of their art."—Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The American Historical Review "[This] material is so interestingly presented that the readers may not immediately appreciate what a major historic study [the book] is, and how carefully documented and critically analyzed."—Lester S. King, Journal of the American Medical Association "Dr. Young's well-written social history of health quackery in twentieth-century America will not only increase the understanding of our times by future historians but will also be of great value to all those interested in improving the health of the population by reminding them of the past."—F. M. Berger, The American Scientist Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.