For Feb 26 (virtual class)

by Prof. Hangen - February 21st, 2014

Due on Feb 26: your Diagnosis: History paper.

Please submit it to me by 8 pm on Wed 2/26 as an email attachment, preferably as a Word document (to see a sample APA paper as a formatting example, click here). For our “virtual class” this week, please continue reading in Rutkow’s book, chapters 5-7 on Scientific Advancement, Professional Authority, and Challenges of Success. History-wise, that will bring us up into the 1930s, which is helpful background when we read Pox later this semester.

One of the things Rutkow talks about is the rise of (and later efforts to contain and control) medical entrepreneurs and “quacks.” Take a look at one or more of the sites on the list below and spend some time exploring them for more about quackery and oddball cures in the 19th century (some in England, some in the U.S.) Enjoy!

The Quack Doctor (a blog of historical cures, medicines, and devices)
Victorian Quack Cures (image gallery by the London Telegraph)
Balm of America: Patent Medicine Collection (Smithsonian Institution)
Patent Medicine: Cures and Quacks (PDF – Pilgrim Hall Museum)
The Medicine Show (Legends of America)
Patent Medicines and Miracle Cures (New York Bar Association)

Please leave a comment about which site(s) you visited and what you found interesting, using the comment box at the foot of this post. Instead of a formal journal entry this week, please contribute definitions to the existing glossary entries on Blackboard, and add at least 3 terms of your own, with definitions. These can be drawn from Rutkow’s book or from any of our readings or documents to date. Remember, each definition should always establish the historical context for the term (time period? place?), because meanings and discourses are always historically constructed (as we learned from Foucault).

5 Responses to “For Feb 26 (virtual class)”

  1. I took a look at all the websites, some more in depth than others. I loved looking at the color advertisements in particular. Some were quite beautiful. I was struck by the similarities of cures then and quick fixes that the public still craves today. Miracle cures for weight loss, larger busts and male verility. I was appolled by the number of cures that were created to essentially knock out small children or soothe them as they called it. Imagine giving morphine, cocaine and alcohol to your infant!

  2. Shanna Martin says:

    Patent Medicine and the Popular Medicine;

    I found it interesting that the “patented medicines” were not actually patented, or at least most of them. I don’t totally understand why they were given this name. I didn’t realize these medications included treatments for such serious illness such as tuberculosis, venereal disease, and even cancer. I would think that most of these medicines were more to treat the symptoms of the illness, rather that the illness itself. I remember hearing about elixirs, and tonics that had cocaine and alcohol in it, but I was definitely not aware that heroin, morphine, or even “snake oil” were in these products.
    These medicines were very popular, specifically for children. They were advertising these products with bright, big, cartoon like features drawing attention to them, for families and children to be drawn to them. Of course I feel like everybody wanted them, because they WORKED ! With drugs like morphine, opium, cocaine and alcohol, of course this would “cure” some of the symptoms like teething babies, merely just knocking them out. With no regulation, on the ingredients and the dangers they had on a normal adult, never mind on a child would be extremely serious, ending in tragic loss.
    These medications ended up being referred to as “Quack medicines” because of their questionable properties and ingredients. Addiction issues were becoming a problem as well, with people becoming dependent on the drug.
    Happy to find out about a few drugs that turned out to not having any dangerous properties to them, like Listerine, Milk of Magnesia, Vicks Vapor rub and aspirin are still safe and in use today. Likely these were the only types of meds because of their benign properties, just like today with them being over the counter products !

  3. Maura Curran says:

    I had visited the The Quack Doctor and I thought that the contraptions that they had on there that were used a long time ago were ridiculous. The “Dolly Dimpler” was one of them. Women would use this to create dimples on their faces that weren’t there. Then there was the “The Nose Machine” which was used to reshape your nose without surgery I though was really funny. Both of these seem like they would be really painful. I had also visited the Victorian Quack Cures and I was looking through some of the pictures and saw “cocaine toothache drops”. I thought that it was funny that something like that even existed. The concept that drugs were used back then in every day items, even soda. Then I had saw a sign from 1895 for Lorings fat-ten-u and Corpula foods. This was used to help gain weight which back in that time period was a sign of good health. Today there are all kinds of advertisements to lose weight. Everything else was interesting as well but these items really stuck out to me.

  4. Tonya; I visited THE QUACK DOCTOR, AND VICTORIAN CURES, I found it amazing that not much has changed over the years in advertising. The catchy phrases, the empty promises, the pretty packaging. it just demonstrates that it was and is known what the public wants, a quick fix without any effort. I admit the Knight with a Sword to kill the nicotine witch, and the promise of free samples worked then and to continue to work now. I guess what is most astonishing to me is that they knew way back, without any formal instruction how to catch the eye of the public and their philosophy continues to work today. I think in many respects were taking a step backward when you see some of the packaging as in what Barts Bees is selling today and there are others I’m just sure of the names, but I recognize the packaging. Hay if it works don’t fix it.

  5. Theresa Steele says:

    I reviewed the Quack Doctor, Antonius W. Van Bysterveld, the expert urine inspector. I found it interesting that he was able to get away with so many criminal acts and continued to go on with business and practice medicine. One big concern was he had no medical license to practice medicine. The issue of him being challenged or questioned about his credentials, he would just report that he was a chemist. Apparently the lies worked for him. It was reported that a young woman died from him prescribing her medication, which still this did not appear to faze him. He continued to practice medication. Known as the “Wonder doctor” who needed no information from his patient, all that was needed was the sample of a person’s urine and he could perform his miracles. He could tell the patient what was wrong without any input from the person. There were too many red flags. Interesting how the A.M.A. had some concern about him proclaiming to be such a “Wonder Doctor” and all the special qualities, which only produce him being a fraud and really not having the ability to treat a person’s urine without the report from the patient. I thought it very clever of the A.M.A. to send bogus samples to test his skills and he failed them all. After being condemned by the A.M.A. to practice he still continued to practice. There were quite a few interesting articles, the other one that caught my eye was Terradermalax- a skin laxative. This was definitely an attention getter. “Purging with in ten minutes” This style of advertisement is still used to get people to buy, even today.