Description
Book Synopsis Through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, various health movements emerged in the transition to the modern age of scientific medicine. Strange medical devices and quack cures were pushed, often using crude remedies based on simplistic beliefs and the placebo effect. Currently, some of these treatments appear absurd, even cruel. Because some were properly used as appropriate therapies, it is difficult to label them altogether as bogus.
This book takes a thorough look at unconventional medical gadgets, as well as the strange devices and therapies used by both fringe and legitimate healers, and places them in the perspective of modern medicine. The author argues that quackery should not be defined by the ineffectiveness of a therapy, but rather be based on the fraudulent intent of the people who pushed dishonest and deceptive remedies.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- One. Time for a Change
- Two. If It Quacks Like a Duck…
- Three. Promises and Placebos
- Four. Some Early Medical Devices
- Five. Magnetic Devices
- Six. The Mysteries of Electricity
- Seven. Messing with the Mind
- Eight. Advanced Electrical Quackery
- Nine. Reshaping the Outside
- Ten. Treating the Insides
- Eleven. Behold the Light
- Twelve. The Promise of Restored Youth
- Thirteen. The Power of Radioactivity
- Postscript
- Glossary: Medical Terminology
- Appendix: The Electromagnetic Spectrum
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
