James Harvey Young, the foremost expert on the history of
medical frauds, finds quackery in the 1990s to be more extensive
and insidious than in earlier and allegedly more naive eras. The
modern quack isn't an outrageous-looking hawker of magic remedies
operating from the back of a carnival wagon, but he knows how to
use antiregulatory sentiment and ingenious promotional approaches
to succeed in a "trade" that is both bizarre and deceitful. In The
Toadstool Millionaires and The Medical Messiahs, Young traced the
history of health quackery in America from its colonial roots to
the late 1960s. This collection of essays discusses more 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, like frauds
related to the teeth, nostrums aimed at children, and cure-all
gadgets with such names as Electreat Mechanical Heart. The case of
Laetrile illustrates how an alleged vitamin for controlling cancer
could be ballyhooed and lobbied into a national mania, half the
states passing laws giving the cyanide-containing drug some special
status. And AIDS is 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 difficulties confronting governmental regulators.
From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, the annual quackery toll
has escalated from two billion to over twenty-five billion dollars.
Young helps us discover why.
Originally published in 1992.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
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