Quackery

A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything

De: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen

Narrado por: Hillary Huber

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.

©2017 Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen (P)2018 Tantor

Captivating

The narrator was the perfect choice for this book. She made the subject matter so enjoyable.

wonderful

easy to follow the narrator and interesting topic. Humerus ( hahaha ) and strangely cool.

Interesting and Entertaining

Very interesting subject matter, thorough with some low brow humor that made me chuckle often

Cracked up

This had me both curious and amused at the same time. From electric baths, to balancing the four light colors. So much fun!

Very interesting book

The story is very interesting and informative but narration... whole different story! Sometimes it sounds like listening to computer generated voice. Plus, tons of “any takers?”, “OK?”, “yammy!”, “mind you”, etc are really not this necessary IMHO.

My New Favorite Book

First, I am listening to another book now, and all I can think about is how much I wish Hillary Huber were narrating it! Her reading of this book was perfect--she got the tone just right, with its mix of grim facts, humor, and fascination. Going forward, if there is a book I am on the fence about, and then I see that she is the narrator, I will buy that book.

Second, I loved the book. Educational, weird facts, humorous, well-research, documented, detailed, sectioned by themes, historical, medical--so much of what I want in a non-fiction book.

The title and subtitle are fairly self-explanatory. Some of the historical and truly awful ways humans have used to cure ailments and boost health include the use of: blood, mummies, color, poisons (tobacco, strychnine, alcohol, etc.), light, water, skin, animal parts, fasting, and blood-letting.

The authors did a great job of being specific and detailed, but never needlessly gory. I was particularly worried about this when I got to the chapter about animal parts, but I was able to listen.

If you have friends or family who are forever getting caught up in trends--I believe that right now it is cinnamon, although the only cinnamon with actual health benefits is both expensive and rare, and too much can be hazardous--this book will give you some ammunition, as in, "Oh, yeah. That sounds like this weird thing people did back in the 1800s."

For any other non-fiction, history, medicine, trends, and sociology fans out there, as well as folks who like the learn while being entertained.

Laugh and learn

I love these stories of medical malpractice - mostly unintentional. I had heard of many of them before but they are presented in a very entertaining manner here.

A bit about the narrator: when I first heard her voice I thought - oh, so nasal and snarky! But then I realized that is her intent - to sound snarky. She pronounced all the foreign quotes and phrases correctly (as far as I could tell - they sure SOUNDED right) but for some reason she kept mispronouncing the word "lancet" - she would say lan-SETT when the emphasis should be on the first syllable. This may sound trivial but there is one section where the word is used a LOT and it's a little annoying. I have noticed mispronunciations in other audiobooks (not just my opinion, I double-checked them) and I wonder, does anyone listen to them before they are put up for sale? There must be legions of English majors working at Audible - let's get some pre-sale reviewing done here. Anyway, that's the ONLY complaint I have about this book.

Funny and Fabulous

Laugh out Loud is what you’ll do when you listen to this book. The content is fascinating, and the delivery by the narrator Hillary Hubert is spectacular. Highly recommend!

Such fun!

This is great edutainment. Getting this peak behind the curtain makes me feel like I’ve been let in on such secrets.

Interesting!

This book was very thorough and very interesting about all the crazy concoctions throughout the years! It made me think about some of the things being marketed today that I tend to perceive as “quackery.” Who knows….quackery might still exist!! It was cool to learn where some phrases came from, for example, blowing smoke up your rear!