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 … 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.
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This book is fantastic with organization and content. As an urban fantasy writer, nothing gets my wheels turning more than the crazy things done in history. I love picking this book up over and over for entertainment and ideas for writing. Definitely recommend.
Pay close attention to the chapter headings! Fascinating and also disgusting.
This was a fascinating, if mildly horrifying, look into the medical quackery lurking in our history. Well-researched with healthy bits of dry humor.
I didn’t love the narrator of the audiobook, but it wasn’t enough for me to stop listening. In fact, I even retained a wealth of information. I came away with the knowledge that the original vibrator was 40lbs, so now I have a fun fact I can share at parties if I am ever not terrified of going outside.
Learned a lot about the history of so called treatments. Very interesting.
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything is a very enlightening, hilarious, and often times quite disturbing book. From past logic and beliefs come this multitude of cures (and I use the term lightly) applied throughout the ages. It is a fascinating read.
Of course, many of these so-called remedies seem ridiculous to us now, but at the time these were the best efforts of then modern science. Read them for fun but remember that in not many decades most things we embrace today as the best of modern science will seem equally bizarre and foolish.
Very interesting, some a bit gross (talking about what people do to themselves and others). It’s worth reading.
Utterly interesting and something you probably shouldn’t read directly after eating.
Yeah, things got a little gross- but we’re talking about the human body here, it was bound to happen!
I read through this book extremely quickly partially because it was so interesting and partially because it was written in such an accessible way. I’m not a medical student or doctor, I took a few related classes, but what I do know about the human body could fit in one book. And not a War and Peace sized book, maybe more…novella-sized. So I consider myself a layman when it comes to medical knowledge, but this book was written in such a way that I was both utterly interested in learning more but never left feeling like I didn’t understand something fully.
I’ve been recommending this to anyone I know with an even vague interest in medicine, history, or humans. So, basically, everyone.
OMG! this book is hilarious! i love getting non fiction in this entertaining manner. how are we all still alive? some of the stuff people used to use as medicine was outrageous! if you need a laugh, read this book!
It’s amazing that the human race has made it so far after the number of quacks that have offered wonder drugs throughout the ages. This book is both an illuminating look and a laugh out loud account of all the “miracle cures” people have put their faith on. The fact that more people weren’t killed by them is a testament to the power of the placebo effect.
A thoroughly entertaining read.