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

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.

"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

"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

"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

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. Nate is a contributing writer for the magazine Fine Books and Collections, where he investigates the strange and unusual side of the rare book market. Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything is his first book.

Elliotson was experimenting furiously with hypnotic technique for the treatment of patients when the Okey sisters were admitted to his London hospital in 1837. They seemed to him ideal subjects...to promote the new powers of medical hypnosis. However, since this was 19th-century London, Elliotson had no intention of conducting a scientifically rigorous study under controlled conditions. Instead, he opted for the stage. The public stage. With paid admission for spectators...

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