Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything

by Lydia Kang MD, Nate Pedersen

Overview

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.


 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761189817
Publisher:	Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/17/2017
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	68,738
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lydia Kang, MD, is a practicing internal medicine physician and author of young adult fiction and adult fiction. Her YA novels include Control, Catalyst, and the upcoming The November Girl. Her adult fiction debut is entitled A Beautiful Poison. Her nonfiction has been published in JAMA, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of General Internal Medicine.


Nate Pedersen is a librarian, historian, and freelance journalist with over 400 publications in print and online, including in the Guardian, the Believer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Art of Manliness.

Editorial Reviews

07/17/2017
In this informally written but well-researched history, physician Kang and journalist Pedersen expose the strange, and to modern eyes ludicrous, ways in which humankind has tried to cure all manner of diseases and afflictions over the centuries. The cures detailed in the book, which span the earliest recorded history to the 19th century, were typically based on scant scientific knowledge and often involved “cleansing” the body, whether through bowel movements, vomiting, sweating, or salivating. Ingesting dissolved gold, it was thought, could give one immortality and cure alcoholism. Bloodletting was thought effective for various ailments already in ancient times, and was often accomplished using leeches. In describing these bizarre practices, Kang and Pedersen offer a constant stream of sarcastic commentary and wisecracks, which can become wearying. The authors temper their mockery of the past, however, with the observation that, as bad as some early medical treatments could be, they were the products of experimentation that often led to effective treatments. Substances such as radium, opium and its derivatives, and strychnine eventually yielded beneficial applications, though the original applications and dosages were often fatal or addictive. Despite the book’s overly flip tone, its distillation of the worst cures of all time is entertaining and informative. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

[A]n insightful look at human hubris in the story of would-be cures of all our ailments.” —NPR’s Science Friday

“Much more than simply an overview of radioactive suppositories and mummy powder, Quackery is a thrilling dive into the human desire to live, to thrive, and the incredible power of belief. Delightful, disturbing, and delightfully disturbing, Quackery shares fascinating medical tales from throughout the ages, including the age we live in. It astonishes with the history of what patients once did in the name of ‘health’ and makes you wonder what we will one day look back on with equal shock.”

—Dylan Thuras, coauthor of Atlas Obscura
 
“Fascinating, fun, and occasionally infuriating. . . . a cautionary tale that should resonate even today—a reminder that when it comes to health care, being an informed consumer may indeed save your life.”
 
—Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz-Age New York
 
“Quackery brilliantly educates and entertains through the errors of doctors and scientists of the past. An entertaining read that will shock you and change how you view the health claims on products that we see daily.”
 
—David B. Agus, MD, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller The End of Illness and Professor of Medicine and Engineering, University of Southern California
 
“A bubbling elixir of the comically useless, the wildly hyped, and the just plain weird in would-be cures through history. Peel away those quaint old patent medicine labels and add some modern buzzwords, and marvel at how much has (and yet hasn’t really) changed.”
 
—Paul Collins, author of The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars
 
“Next time someone reminisces to you about the good old days, remind them how people used to wash their faces with arsenic, rub on radium liniment, and give each other tobacco smoke enemas. This compulsively readable compendium is a great reminder that medicine in the old days was often worse than the disease—and that there’s always reason to be wary of ‘miracle cures.’”
 
—Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses 
 
“Entertaining and informative.” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

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