Quackery

It's amazing what the human race has done in the name of science. Remember when doctors gave crying kids morphine? Or how we found out about mercury poisoning? <i>Quackey </i> by Lydia Kang has it all. The novel mixes dark humor with hard science. It's an exploration of of history's craziest cures, experiments, and scams.

This book was quirky (sometimes a bit cheesy), but a little hard to get through. While the storytelling was compelling, it wasn't engaging enough to keep me on my seat. I think most of it was that I'm the wrong audience. While I appreciated the humor between gore, it was a little too forced. Also, the book was not something I would read again after learning the important tidbits. And don't get me wrong, the tidbits were interesting. The whole time I was praising the Lord I was born in a time when doctors understand how certain procedures can be harmful. Then again, who knows what present day medicine practices will be considered future quackery.

People that have a love for medicine, history, science, or random facts would love this book. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

This is a great read! I was impressed with the balance of humor and research that went into Quakery. If you like odd histories of the psuedoscience behind some of the strangest things thought at one time, and currently, to heal various ailments, pick up this book!

I have been looking for a book like this ever since I started working in the library. The book is about the weird and sometimes deadly things people used to believe about the human body. Like they believed that if you ate gold you can become immortal. Part of me wants to buy the physical copy because I'm sure the Kindle version is not as pretty. (This was not available to download from Netgalley for Kindle.)

Thanks to NetGalley and Workman Publishing Company for the opportunity to read and review Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang. The book has sections for elements, plants and soil, tools, animals and mysterious powers. The first section begins with the medicinal use of mercury. Interesting and intriguing in its awfulness, especially the part about using it for babies who are teething; whoa! Then I learned about the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty who was desperate for immortality and was given mercury medicines by his alchemists because they thought that was the answer. He died at forty-nine and his mausoleum rivals Egyptian pharaohs and is said to be flowing with rivers of mercury! Tidbits of mercury use include historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon and Edgar Allan Poe. Reading about Opium use was eye-opening and jaw-dropping, especially the part about giving it to quiet crying babies and children! The No More Pain with Cocaine part all the way to cannibalism and corpse medicine kept me morbidly fascinated. 5 stars for a must-read of a sketchy piece of history!
*I received a complimentary copy of this book for voluntary consideration.

Tongue-in-cheek humor abounds in this sometimes terrifying tale of quack cures from long ago and, even more scary, from not that far back.

It's one thing to look back at a period of time when we knew basically nothing about the human body and laugh that people thought that if the King touched your horrible rash, it would cure it. It's quite another to hear about quackery from not that long ago, like the book that came out in 1992 called, Sharks Don't Get Cancer by William Lane and Linda Comac, that started a run on shark cartilage supplements. (Seriously, I remember this fad and BTW, sharks get cancer.) One you can laugh at and sort of understand the poor serfs that didn't know any better, the latter, well it could have you checking your bookcase or vitamin supply.

Sitting under blue glass can cure all sorts of stuff and make your livestock huge, some guy in Pennsylvania swore in the 1870's. Face west, pull out a hair sample, and send it to a dude in San Francisco for both your diagnosis and cure, just be sure to also send your first deposit for your Radionic Device. (That dude was worth $2 million when he died in 1924 and Upton Sinclair, the amazing writer of The Jungle, thought he was the bee's knees.) There have been so many quack cures that you just have to shake your head for the poor fools that bought them and hope to gosh that you never fall for one.

I'm not sure if it was the feeling of "I'd never fall for that" or the sense of humor that pervades the book, but I kept turning pages like I was looking for my own cure for something. I enjoyed it!

Equal parts mortifying, morbid and fascinating, Quackery is a guided tour through the horrifying world of medicine and health care in days gone by. I eat these kinds of books up like candy, who doesn’t like lurid trivia of the not-so-good ol’ days I know I do! I really liked the layout, it’s akin to my favorite magazine, Mental Floss with little factoids on every page to highlight the subject. Very well organized, full of stomach turning stories of medical mistakes and maladies, it kept me turning pages and very thankful I live in the modern day.

A jaw-dropping, mind-boggling collection of gruesome and ghastly concoctions and procedures guaranteed to cure whatever ails you… if it doesn’t kill you first