A pleasant surprise

books:


	• Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, & Books William H. Helfand Winterhouse Editions, 2002 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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A pleasant surprise

The subject of patent medicines and quack medical cures has always been a facinating one for me. I was hesitant at first to order this book, considering it had no reviews and I couldn't find much information about what exactly was in it online. Once I got the book, I was pleased to find that it is full of advertising for quack doctors and medications ranging from the 17th century to the early 20th century.

While most of the prints are black and white, there are a few color ones scattered through the pages. Each print is accompanied by write up explaining its origin, and a bit of additional information about the medication or doctor being advertised. Also included is information about the print, such as the title, year it was published, artist or author, and other details.

Many of the advertisers used very small print for things like testimonials. All of the images in the book are very large, and it is possible to see the detail of elaborate lithographs and read all but the very smallest text (though you may need a magnifying glass for some of it).

There is a lengthy introduction on the history of quackery and its relationship to legitimate medicine (at one time, they were one and the same after all), and how the methods of these patent cure-alls are still with us today.

The chapters are arranged loosely according to the type of service being offered, though in some cases certain especially influential products/quacks have their own chapters. Everything from medical museums that were little better than carnival freak shows to electric belts to vibrating chairs to colored glass windows to cures for opium or alcohol addiction laced with stronger dosages of cocaine or morphine. Sprinkled throughout these chapters are contemporary commentary and criticism on specific products by sceptical (and often humorous) journalists.

The final chapter is devoted entirely to political cartoons and images from articles against the evils of quackery in general, everything from how the advertisments were distributed to comparisons in the amount of alcohol in patent medicines to hard liqour.

The only major beef I have with this book is that a few of the images are marked as 'color lithograph' but are not actually printed in color in the book. I think that the author may not have had access to the color originals in these cases, considering that there are images that are printed in color.

If, like me, you find the history of medicine and its dark side to be a subject of interest, I wholeheartedly endorse this book. It's well worth the price of admission.

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This authoritative and entertaining exhibition catalog explores the long visual history of a rich and neglected topic: medical quackery, from the itinerant seller of nostrums four centuries ago to the unsolicited spam of today's internet. Presenting a broad variety of material?prints by William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier, posters by Jules Chéret and Maxfield Parrish, and books by H. G. Wells and S. Weir Mitchell?Quack, Quack, Quack offers a delightful look at the remarkable artistry and elaborate language quacks used to peddle their wares: lavish pronouncements, excessive postures, and imaginatively exalted therapeutic promises.

The earliest quacks, we see, dressed elaborately, inflated their credentials, and embraced an extravagant vocabulary to market their panaceas, at times claiming their pills and salves would cure all disease. They were succeeded in short order by the makers of proprietary medicines, many of whom adopted quack-style promotional methods while introducing new ones of their own. These vendors advertised widely?often with celebrity testimonials?publishing broadsides, posters, pamphlets, and manifestos to amplify their claims.

And though recent strides in medicine mean that most people avoid quacks, and efforts have been made to rid society of patent-medicine makers, the quack survives to the present day, promising to make us all thinner, better-looking, healthier, or more sexually potent. This catalogue?and the 2002 New York City Grolier Club exhibition it originally accompanied?are fascinating reminders of how long such promises have been with us, and in how many unique and scintillating ways they've been made.

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