Quackery
Quackery - A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (Hardcover)
R 593.00−18%
Loot · checked Today
- Average
- R 725.00
- Lowest seen
- R 340.00
- Highest seen
- R 725.00
- Last change
- -R 132.00
- First indexed
- 24 Sep 2022
- Retailer
- Loot
What wonât 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 strychnineâyes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poisonâwas 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 âtreatmentsââconceived by doctors and scientists, by spiritualists and snake oil salesmen (yes, they literally tried to sell snake oil)âthat 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.