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In the 17th, 18th, or 19th century, if you were sick, call the doctor if you wanted to die more quickly! The horrors of "medical treatment" which even stretched to the early 20th century have to be read about to be believed. It was a guessing game and the patient was the lab rat who rarely survived the "cure". Physicians were obsessed with bleeding (even if your problem was loss of blood); enemas (even if your problem was diarrhea); drilling holes in your skull to release the bad spirits; arseni...
While this is a fun read and definitely contains a lot of information about different medical beliefs and practices in history, it has a very amateur feel. There are times where the tone of the authors has a very strong informal colloquial style. They use cliches and conversational terms and I think that it de-emphasizes the importance of this information being framed in a more formal tone so that it feels more legitimate and factual.
Hilarious and empathic. Its one of those books where so much was covered,a ll of it interesting, that I could read it several times and come away with something different each time.
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia King is a 2017 Workman Publishing Company publication. A jaw dropping collection of gruesome and ghastly concoctions and procedures guaranteed to cure whatever ails you… if it doesn’t kill you first. Before there was an FDA to weed out potentially dangerous ‘snake oil cures', the market was open to all manner of experimental potions and concoctions sold to an unsuspecting public. This is a fascinating look at some of the mos...
This falls into the category of books that are both funny and informative.I particularly loved the first two sections. These chapters cover an era we won’t ever see the likes of again. Would you like some morphine in soothing syrup for your kids, or how about a heroine prescription for your acne? Surely you won’t say no to cocaine suppositories and radium toothpaste? I also loved the vintage ads that accompanied these sections.From syphilis and epilepsy to itchy feet and unpleasant neighbours. W...
I feel like I gotta give this 5 stars on account of it being 100% what I expected, which is essentially a book length Cracked article in the shape of a book.It's gross, horrifying, and great.
It was interesting to read this book in the amidst of the coronavirus outbreak. It's astonishing how quackery, superstition and mythos is still noticeable in the practice of medicine today.
A humorous overview of the history of medical practices that were dangerous, useless or downright weird, this book pretty well accomplishes what it set out to do. As it’s formatted encyclopedia-style rather than as a narrative I had to read it in small chunks, and after some funny bits at the beginning I found myself more often grossed out by the practices described or horrified by them (some of the practices used against unconsenting mentally ill patients were really horrific). So I didn’t exac...
As a medstudent with a sarcastic view on life I'm legit excited to read this lmao.
Quackery taught me that people have been desperately seeking cures for ailments, real and perceived, for ages. Sometimes that search takes them into disgusting or deadly treatments peddled by others who are taking advantage of that desperation for their own gain.These human vultures have been called "quacks," among other things."But quackery isn't always about pure deception. Though the term is usually defined as the practice and promotion of intentionally fraudulent medical treatments, it also
