Through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, various new health movements emerged in the transition to the modern age of scientific medicine. Strange medical devices and quack cures were pushed for the curing of illnesses during this time, frequently using crude remedies based on simplistic beliefs and the placebo effect. Nowadays, some of these treatments appear absurd, even cruel. Because some of these devices were properly used as appropriate therapies, it's difficult to label them altogether as bogus devices. This book takes a thorough look at unconventional medical gadgets, as well as the strange devices and therapies used by both fringe and legitimate healers, and places them in the perspective of modern medicine. The author argues that quackery should not be defined by the ineffectiveness of a therapy, but rather be based on the fraudulent intent of the people who pushed dishonest and deceptive remedies.

Western films have often been tributes to place and setting, with the magnificent backdrops mirroring the wildness of the narratives. As the splendid outdoor scenery of Westerns could not be found on a studio back lot or on a Hollywood sound stage, the movies have been filmed in the wide open spaces of the American West and beyond. This book chronicles the history of filming Westerns on location, from shooting on the East Coast in the early 1900s; through the use of locations in Utah, Arizona, and California in the 1940s and 1950s; and filming Westerns in Mexico, Spain, and other parts of the world in the 1960s. Also studied is the relationship between the filming location timeline and the evolving motion picture industry of the twentieth century, and how these factors shaped audience perceptions of the "Real West.

The traditional view of the American West is that the frontier was settled by colonists emigrating from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific shore. Spanish conquistadors, however, landed in Central America 150 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. This is the story of how the Spanish pushed north from Mexico in the 1500s seeking riches, in the process colonizing the Southwest 250 years before the American influx of European settlers in the mid-1800s. Much of the culture and many of the traditions brought by these Spanish explorers have influenced what is present and visible today. The wave of conquerors, soldiers, settlers, and men of the church that flowed north from Mexico during the 1600s and 1700s eventually populated a vast area. Spanish explorers established settlements over a broad section extending over the Southwest from Texas to California as they searched for riches in the form of gold and silver. Along with the original Spanish conquistadors came missionaries who tried to convert the existing native population to Christianity. This forced conversion of the Pueblo and Plains Indians, and suppression of their native religious beliefs, led to cultural clashes that eventually resulted in outright rebellion, and affected the course of history in the Southwest.

This book explores the role and influence of drink and drugs (primarily opium) in the Old West, which for this book is considered to be America west of the Mississippi from the California gold rush of the 1840s to the closing of the Western Frontier in roughly 1900. This period was the first time in American history that heavy drinking and drug abuse became a major social concern. Drinking was considered to be an accepted pursuit for men at the time. Smoking opium was considered to be deviant and associated with groups on the fringes of mainstream society, but opium use and addiction by women was commonplace. This book presents the background of both substances and how their use spread across the West, at first for medicinal purposes--but how overuse and abuse led to the Temperance Movement and eventually to National Prohibition. This book reports the historical reality of alcohol and opium use in the Old West without bias.

This book describes the evolution of the Western cowboy hero as a mythic person created and propagated by dime novels, pulp fiction, television and Hollywood movies. The expectations and demands of readers, viewers, and movie makers have all influenced the public perception of the Western hero. As a result, business interests have commercialized the Western past as publishers and studios have tried to make their image of the West be the most compelling to ensure the largest audience. Because many of our contemporary perceptions of the Western hero have come to us from Hollywood, much of the book discusses his changing image in the movies. The first chapter presents an overview of the Western hero. The rest of the chapters trace the image of the hero and his place in the fictional West from early novels and movies to the present, and discuss how his image has evolved due to changing audience expectations and economic pressures on various media to create a profitable product.

This book compares the reality of the Old West to how it is portrayed in the escapist entertainment of Western movies: It has the perspective of history rather than traditional analysis or critical commentary. Starting with the early 1900s Western movies, the narrative follows the evolution in look, style, and content as the films matured from short vignettes of good-versus-bad into the modern plots. The book compares the reality of the cowboys, Indians, gunmen, lawmen, and soldiers who peopled the Old West to how they are portrayed (real and fictional) on the silver screen.

Western stories and motion pictures are full of images of badmen swaggering about the Old West, brought to justice only by valiant lawmen shooting them down in daring gunfights. In reality, this type of writing consists mostly of invented and anecdotal tales. After a shootout, real lawmen doing their legitimate job in the Old West did not simply walk away from a gunfight, as commonly depicted in the movies. They had to face the legal system and justify a shooting, the same as the criminals they arrested. To provide a more realistic account of criminal justice, this book is a factual history of crime and punishment in the Old West from about 1850 to 1900. The focus is how criminals in the Old West came into conflict with the law and what happened after they were apprehended. This book describes the entire criminal justice process, starting with common crimes committed in the Old West, from crimes such as train robbery and cattle theft, to criminal assault, and gunfights. The narrative discusses methods of apprehension of criminals and the final resolution of their crimes through the criminal justice system, followed by the consequences for the lawbreaker, which included local jail, state prisons, flogging, or (if the crime were severe enough) hanging. Topics are illustrated using stories of actual criminals, lawmen, and crimes as examples.

Modern spas are wellness resorts that offer beauty treatments, massages and complementary therapies. Victorian spas were sanitariums, providing "water cure" treatments supplemented by massage, vibration, electricity and radioactivity. Rooted in the palliative health reforms of the early 19th century, spas of the Victorian Age grew out of the hydrotherapy institutions of the 1840s-an alternative to the horrors of bleeding and purging. The regimen focused on diet, rest, cessation of alcohol and foods that upset the stomach, stress reduction and plenty of water. The treatments, though sometimes of a dubious nature, formed the transition from the primitive methods of "heroic medicine" to the era of scientifically based practices.

Sensationalistic literature is reading material that is intended to shock, startle, excite, or arouse intense interest in a reader through the use of subject matter, style, language, or artistic expression. Readers throughout the ages have been fascinated by lurid fiction about crime, assault, killings, thievery, kidnapping, murder, and the associated villains of the worst type. This type of reading material has provided escapism that has thrilled and shocked readers from the appearance of dime novels around the time of the American Civil War to the decline of the pulp magazines after World War II and the transition into what have become today's paperback novels. This popular history of dime novels and pulp magazines during the time period from approximately 1850 to 1960 describes how sensational pulp literature filled a need among readers and flowered during the evolving social conditions of the Industrial Revolution. It provides a comprehensive story of why pulp books and magazines appeared, what this type of literature was, how it became popular, how it was the basis for the later pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, and then continued on into today's thrillers.

Their heads filled with images of glory and battle, most young men joined the frontier army only to endure a life of tedious drills, bad meals, uncomfortable quarters, and ill-fitting uniforms. Working hard seven days a week and in all weather, soldiers frequently found themselves lonely and bored, with little opportunity for advancement but many ways to be punished????????????all for $13 a month. Focusing on the Indian Wars period of the 1840s through the 1890s, Life of a Soldier on the Western Frontier captures the daily challenges faced by the typical enlisted man and explores the role soldiers played in the conquering of the American frontier. In addition to describing the nitty-gritty details of a soldier's daily life, this fascinating study explores the Indian Wars from the perspective of both the military and the Indians and examines all aspects of the post????????????Civil War army, including its organization, its weapons, and its personnel. The book also contains two appendices, one summarizing significant battles and the other listing selected western forts. Both include site locations and information for visitors. Dozens of photos and several maps add to the reader's understanding and enjoyment.