Quacks and Con Artists

Quacks and Con Artists PDF Author: John Farndon
Publisher: Hungry Tomato ®
ISBN: 1512430773
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
"The dubious history of doctors"--Cover.

Quacks and Con Artists

Quacks and Con Artists PDF Author: John Farndon
Publisher: Hungry Tomato ®
ISBN: 1512430773
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
"The dubious history of doctors"--Cover.

Denialism

Denialism PDF Author: Michael Specter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101151021
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In this provocative and headline-making book, Michael Specter confronts the widespread fear of science and its terrible toll on individuals and the planet. In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter reveals that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and especially the institution of science more today than ever before. For centuries, the general view had been that science is neither good nor bad—that it merely supplies information and that new information is always beneficial. Now, science is viewed as a political constituency that isn’t always in our best interest. We live in a world where the leaders of African nations prefer to let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains. Childhood vaccines have proven to be the most effective public health measure in history, yet people march on Washington to protest their use. In the United States a growing series of studies show that dietary supplements and “natural” cures have almost no value, and often cause harm. We still spend billions of dollars on them. In hundreds of the best universities in the world, laboratories are anonymous, unmarked, and surrounded by platoons of security guards—such is the opposition to any research that includes experiments with animals. And pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed. As Michael Specter sees it, this amounts to a war against progress. The issues may be complex but the choices are not: Are we going to continue to embrace new technologies, along with acknowledging their limitations and threats, or are we ready to slink back into an era of magical thinking? In Denialism, Specter makes an argument for a new Enlightenment, the revival of an approach to the physical world that was stunningly effective for hundreds of years: What can be understood and reliably repeated by experiment is what nature regarded as true. Now, at the time of mankind’s greatest scientific advances—and our greatest need for them—that deal must be renewed.

Quacks!

Quacks! PDF Author: S. D. Tucker
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445671824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
A raucous history of medicine's more bizarre attempts to explain and preserve the human body. Prepare to feel queasy.

Quackery

Quackery PDF Author: Lydia Kang
Publisher: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 0761189815
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.

The Book of Charlatans

The Book of Charlatans PDF Author: Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Jawbarī
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479897639
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Uncovering the professional secrets of con artists and swindlers in the medieval Middle East The Book of Charlatans is a comprehensive guide to trickery and scams as practiced in the thirteenth century in the cities of the Middle East, especially in Syria and Egypt. The author, al-Jawbarī, was well versed in the practices he describes and may well have been a reformed charlatan himself. Divided into thirty chapters, his book reveals the secrets of everyone from “Those Who Claim to be Prophets” to “Those Who Claim to Have Leprosy” and “Those Who Dye Horses.” The material is informed in part by the author’s own experience with alchemy, astrology, and geomancy, and in part by his extensive research. The work is unique in its systematic, detailed, and inclusive approach to a subject that is by nature arcane and that has relevance not only for social history but also for the history of science. Covering everything from invisible writing to doctoring gemstones and quack medicine, The Book of Charlatans opens a fascinating window into a subculture of beggars’ guilds and professional con artists in the medieval Arab world. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

The Big Quack Attack

The Big Quack Attack PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Quacks and quackery
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description


Brokenomics

Brokenomics PDF Author: Dina Gachman
Publisher: Seal Press
ISBN: 1580055680
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
In Brokenomics, author Dina Gachman shares the lessons she’s learned about how to live large in the cheap seats. Through stories both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny that anyone can relate to, Dina reveals all the tricks you need to live the good life without spending a ton of money. Brokenomics covers the place where economics and everyday life collide. It includes: rules for changing your mindset ("There Will Always Be Someone Richer, Taller, Smarter, and Better Looking Than You”), wise words about making big decisions, like raising children—or not ("Why Have a Baby When You Can Just Get a Nice Potted Plant?”), clear-eyed relationship advice ("Do Not Date Anyone Who Loves Their Bong More Than They Love You”), solid guidance for renters ("The Freeloader's Guide to Housesitting”), and strategies for talking to your honey about money . . . without breaking up. This helpful and hilarious handbook has the answers for crafting your own version of the glamorous life without breaking the bank. Dina shares advice on every page while keeping things fresh, light, and fun. Written with the wisdom afforded by hindsight, Brokenomics will appeal to recent college grads, newly committed couples, and those facing career crises alike.

Death Rays and the Popular Media, 1876-1939

Death Rays and the Popular Media, 1876-1939 PDF Author: William J. Fanning, Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476621926
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Death rays! Absurd idea peddled by con artists and amateurs and promoted by a sensationalist press? Not quite. Government and military leaders and mainstream scientists endorsed the possibility of such a fantastic weapon in the years before World War II. A concept born out of research with electricity and other energy sources, the death ray or "directed energy weapon" was widely reported for nearly five decades. Claims for its invention appeared as early as 1876, and increased thereafter, until the "death-ray craze" of the 1920s and 1930s. The idea influenced fiction, making its way from newspapers and magazines into novels, short stories, films, theatrical productions and other media. This book takes a first-ever look at the historical death ray and its impact on fiction and popular culture.

The Secret Nature of Matter

The Secret Nature of Matter PDF Author: Richard Gordon
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623171482
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Richard Gordon maps out new territory in the rarely explored intersection of science and spirituality in this fascinating investigation of the profound relationship between matter and consciousness. Building on the Quantum-Touch technique he developed in previous books, Gordon explains how the hands-on energy healing technique that he uses to help to alleviate nerve pain, headaches, back pain, hip pain, TMJ, and more provides a unique window onto the secret nature of matter. He explains how, by examining pelvic and occipital torsion, and then aligning people without the use of touch or suggestion, he is able to run a wide range of simple experiments that challenge many dogmas of science. This book teaches readers the technique along with 57 easy-to-reproduce experiments that allow them to test the results. These experiments clearly demonstrate that our consciousness can profoundly influence matter, and that an object charged with energy and intent can dramatically affect us physiologically in seconds.

Rhetoric and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era

Rhetoric and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era PDF Author: Joshua J. Frye
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666902810
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Rhetoric and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era offers a timely examination of public communication and political culture in the United States and the systemic feedback loops that have amplified democratic dysfunction and violence. Informed by both deductive and inductive analysis of four key perils (post-truth; polarization; [social media] platform; and populism) in the interplay of complex systems, Joshua J. Frye and Steven R. Goldzwig examine rhetorical traditions and trajectories to synoptically explain both how we got to this point and how we can fix it. Exploring salient and increasingly important issues affecting the public life and culture of American democracy and democracies worldwide, this work expands public understanding of the current political landscape, reveals what effective democratic citizenship requires, and identifies communication practices that can be used to better engage with these contemporary challenges. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and political science will find this book of particular interest.