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

By: Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen

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Synopsis: 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.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 256 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9781523501854
Publisher:: Workman Publishing Company
Date of Addition:: 07/08/22
Copyrighted By:: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Social Studies, Humor, Medicine
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.