American Health Quackery [Hardcover]

James Harvey Young (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 1992

This study of American medical fraud finds quackery in the 1990s to be more extensive and insidious than in earlier and allegedly more naive eras. The author argues that the modern quack is not an outrageous hawker of magic remedies operating from the back of a carnival wagon, but a trained technician who knows how to use antiregulatory sentiment and ingenious promotional approaches to succeed in a "trade" that is both bizarre and deceitful. This collection of essays discusses recent health scams and reconsiders earlier ones. Liberally illustrated with examples of advertising for patent medicines and other "alternative therapies", the book links evolving quackery to changing currents in the scientific, cultural and governmental environment. Young describes varieties of quackery, such as frauds related to the teeth, nostrums aimed at children, and cure-all gadgets with such names as the Electreat Mechanical Heart. The case of Laetrile illustrates how an alleged vitamin for controlling cancer could be lobbied into a national mania, with many state legislatures passing laws giving the cyanide-containing drug special status. AIDS is shown to be the most recent example of an illness that, tragically, has panicked some of its victims and members of the general public into putting their hopes in fake cures and preventives. Young discusses the complex question of vulnerability - why people fall victim to health fraud - and considers the difficulities confronting governmental regulators.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Young, an emeritus professor at Emory University, became fascinated with medical fakeries and fraudulent healing potions in the 1920s, when he first spied a traveling medicine man. In this collection of essays he examines health quackery's evolution to modern times. Medical hucksters, he observes, are often greeted with a wink and a nudge; "most people still perceive quackery as something quaint, comical, and harmless." And while Young shows that Silent George's Swamp Rabbit Milk (small cans of condensed milk with the labels removed and spray-painted gold) won't really harm much more than the buyer's pride and pocketbook, other so-called miracle drugs, such as Laetrile, do have the potential to hurt. He explains the history of drug regulations in America and the use of alluring advertising to sell cures for a patient's "grimmest diseases."' One example cited is Listerine: in the late 19th century it was sold to cure gonorrhea, but by the 1920s it promised to protect halitosis sufferers from such scarring social stigmas as "often a bridesmaid but never a bride." Young skewers all forms of medical chicanery, but believes that as long as someone is looking for a miraculous means of relieving an amazing range of afflictions, there will be someone willing to sell it.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This collection of essays from a noted expert in quackery studies ( The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America , LJ 3/1/68, now available in paperback from Princeton) covers medical quackery from the turn of the century to the present. It is easy to become absorbed in Young's curious and even humorous examples of quackery, from the cure-all sarsaparilla root and opiates to Laetrile and crushed cell cures. However, Young emphasizes that the treatments he describes are not merely entertaining but also extremely dangerous in themselves or because of their substitution for accepted treatments. With the current push to reduce the Food and Drug Administration's regulatory power over experimental AIDS drugs and the increased regulation of nutrition statements in advertising, the topic of quackery is very timely. American Health Quackery , which includes new and previously published essays, should be in public and academic libraries.
- Eric D. Albright, Galter Health Sciences Lib., Northwestern Univ., Chicago
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 316 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr (June 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691047820
• ISBN-13: 978-0691047829
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,396,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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