Overview

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. This book 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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9781665226387

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[Huber's] delivery is a good fit for the bleakly absurd, often macabre tone of the audiobook.-- AudioFile Entertaining and informative. -- Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Lydia Kang is an author of young adult fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. A graduate of Columbia University and New York University School of Medicine, she is a practicing physician who has gained a reputation for helping fellow writers achieve medical accuracy in fiction. She is the author of two books, and her poetry and nonfiction have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Annals of Internal Medicine, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Great Weather for Media. Nate Pedersen is a librarian, historian, and writer in Oregon. He is a Community Librarian with Deschutes Public Library and serves on the Board of Directors for the Deschutes County Historical Society & Museum. His journalism has appeared in the Art of Manliness, the Guardian, Trail Runner, and The Believer. Hillary Huber is one of the most successful voice talents in Los Angeles. Recent books read for Blackstone Audio include Him, Her, Him Again, the End of Him by Patricia Marx, A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read, and A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart.

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