Marketplace of the marvelous : the strange origins of modern medicine

Title:

Author:

Janik, Erika.

Personal Author:

Janik, Erika.

ISBN:

9780807022085

Physical Description:

337 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Contents:

Medicine at the crossroads -- Every man his own physician : Thomson's botanic medicine -- The only true science of the mind : phrenology -- Quenching thirst, healing pain : hydropathy -- Dilutions of health : homeopathy -- Hypnotized : Mesmer and his mental magic -- Selling snake oil : patent medicine -- Manual medicine : osteopathy and chiropractic -- The fall and rise of alternative medicine.

Abstract:

Looks at some of the stranger medical treatments in use in the nineteenth century, including bloodletting, phrenology, and hydropathy, and shows how these "quack" cures have influenced medicine today.

Subject Term:

Medicine -- Specialties and specialists -- History.

Medicine, magic, mystic, and spagiric -- History.

Alternative medicine -- History.

Medicine -- History.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	610 J33	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

An entertaining introduction to the quacks, snake-oil salesmen, and charlatans, who often had a point
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Despite rampant scientific innovation in nineteenth-century America, traditional medicine still adhered to ancient healing methods, subjecting patients to bleeding, blistering, and induced vomiting and sweating. Facing such horrors, many patients ran with open arms to burgeoning practices that promised new ways to cure their ills. Hydropaths offered cures using "healing waters" and tight wet-sheet wraps. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby experimented with magnets and tried to replace "bad," diseased thoughts with "good," healthy thoughts, while Daniel David Palmer reportedly restored a man's hearing by knocking on his vertebrae. Lorenzo and Lydia Fowler used their fingers to "read" their clients' heads, claiming that the topography of one's skull could reveal the intricacies of one's character. Lydia Pinkham packaged her Vegetable Compound and made a famous family business from the homemade cure-all. And Samuel Thomson, rejecting traditional medicine, introduced a range of herbal remedies for a vast array of woes, supplemented by the curative powers of poetry.
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Bizarre as these methods may seem, many are the precursors of today's notions of healthy living. We have the nineteenth-century practice of "medical gymnastics" to thank for today's emphasis on regular exercise, and hydropathy's various water cures for the notion of regular bathing and the mantra to drink "eight glasses of water a day." And much of the philosophy of health introduced by these alternative methods is reflected in today's patient-centered care and holistic medicine, which takes account of the body and spirit.

Moreover, these entrepreneurial alternative healers paved the way for women in medicine. Shunned by the traditionalists and eager for converts, many of the masters of these new fields embraced the training of women in their methods. Some women, like Pinkham, were able to break through the barriers to women working to become medical entrepreneurs themselves. In fact, next to teaching, medicine attracted more women than any other profession in the nineteenth century, the majority of them in "irregular" health systems.
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These eccentric ideas didn't make it into modern medicine without a fight, of course. As these new healing methods grew in popularity, traditional doctors often viciously attacked them with cries of "quackery" and pressed legal authorities to arrest, fine, and jail irregulars for endangering public safety. Nonetheless, these alternative movements attracted widespread support--from everyday Americans and the famous alike, including Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and General Ulysses S. Grant--with their messages of hope, self-help, and personal empowerment.
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Though many of these medical fads faded, and most of their claims of magical cures were discredited by advances in medical science, a surprising number of the theories and ideas behind the quackery are staples in today's health industry. Janik tells the colorful stories of these "quacks," whose oftentimes genuine wish to heal helped shape and influence modern medicine.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A sharp compendium of the stranger developments in 19th-century medicine that have influenced how we care for ourselves today. In parallel to the discovery of germs, X-ray technology and the novel idea of sterilized surgery, there developed a branch of pseudoscience called alternative, or irregular, medicine. The irregular practices were aligned by their democratic belief in a common understanding of medicine for the benefit of the people--i.e., wellness that did not rely on institutionalized, elitist doctors. After all, the accepted practices of the establishment included painful, "heroic" treatments like bloodletting, induced vomiting and blistering, which were believed to draw the disease out of a person. Other accepted ministrations were chemical purgatives that contained mercury, arsenic and antimony. Among the alternative methods that historian Janik (Apple: A Global History, 2011, etc.) highlights are holistic practices like hydropathy and botanic medicine, which stressed the curative and hygienic qualities of water, as well as natural, plant-based solutions. While the methods of hydropathy and botanic medicine were ambitious and well-meaning, these methods were also mostly incorrect. Among the irregular practices that proved most reliable and scientific was the chiropractic technique, which is still practiced today. On the other hand, phrenology, homeopathy and mesmerism all fit the description of "quack" science for their bizarre practices--e.g., measuring skull variations to determine intellectual and emotional attributes, ingesting diluted doses of harmful tinctures and controlling the flow of nervous fluids with magnets. These practices proved highly lucrative for many of their founders and inspired throngs of followers and fellow practitioners, much to the dismay of the distinguished physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, who persistently railed against the pseudoscience community for challenging the academy. Perhaps most importantly, Janik asserts the role of women in administering remedies--mothers were the chief doctors of local communities--and developing the successful irregular methods into what we now consider conventional medicine. A thorough, informative history of the many eccentric narratives that make these quack sciences so interesting and important to modern medicine.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.