Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xiii, 498 p. : ill.; 22 cm.

Summary

1. An historical analysis of the development of patent medicines in the USA, from the enactment of the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 to the mid-1960s. Charlatans and dangerous drugs, such as the weight-reducing pill Marmola, are described in detail.

Uniform title

1. Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

1. Quackery
2. Quackery > history
3. Quacks and quackery > United States
4. Quackery > history > United States
5. United States

Contents

1. 1. Brane-Fude: The first court trial under the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act. p. 3.
2. 2. Lawless Centuries: History and stage-setting for health quackery in 20th-century America. p. 13.
3. 3. Decade of Enforcement: Valiant efforts, a Supreme Court defeat, and ambiguous help from Congress. p. 41.
4. 4. Fraud in the Mails: Enforcement of postal fraud statutes from the late 19th century through the 1920's. p. 66.
5. 5. B. & M.: A decade-long effort to prove fraud in court during the golden glow of prosperity. p. 88.
6. 6. "Truth in Advertising": Cooperative efforts by the self-regulators and the Federal Trade Commission to restrict the most flagrant abuses of nostrum advertising. p. 113.
7. 7. New Muckrakers: The American Medical Association keeps muck-raking currents flowing until the next floodtide: the "guinea pig" school of critics. p. 129.
8. 8. New Deal and the New Laws: The hotly contested effort to make federal controls over self-medication drugs more nearly adequate to social need. p. 158.
9. 9. In Pursuit of the Diminishing Promise: Food and Drug Administration use of the new law to drive false claims from labeling step by step through court interpretation. p. 191.
10. 10. Two Gentlemen from Indiana: A diabetes clinic run by two physician-brothers named Kaadt. p. 217.
11. 11. Gadget Boom: Device quackery in America, highlighting Ruth B. Drown's Radio Therapeutic Instrument. p. 239.
12. 12. Chemotherapeutic Revolution: The way the "wonder drugs" era of prescription medication influenced patterns of self-medication. p. 260.
13. 13. Mail-Order "Health": The Post Office Department's contest with medical fraud since the 1930s. p. 282.
14. 14. Proprietary Advertising and the Wheeler-Lea Act: The triumphs and failures of the Federal Trade Commission in aiming its 1938 law against abuses in the advertising of self-medication wares. p. 296.
15. 15. Medicine Show Impresario: A Louisiana state senator and his medicine show for Hadacol. p. 316.
16. 16. "You Are What You Eat": Nutrition nonsense by spielers and door-to-door salesmen: Adolphus Hohensee the main exhibit. p. 333.
17. 17. "The Most Heartless" : Cancer quackery, especially the protracted Harry Hoxsey case. p. 360.
18. 18. Anti-Quackery, Inc.: A more cohesive effort to combat quackery, prompted by quackery's burgeoning. p. 390.
19. 19. Turmoil on the Drug Scene: New frights, a new law, and new awareness of the need for better comprehension of the phenomenon of quackery. p. 408.
20. 20. Perennial Proneness: Reflections on the complex motivations that have made mankind so readily susceptible to the quack's appeal. p. 423.
21. Afterword. p. 435.
22. Note on the Sources. p. 472.
23. Index. p. 481.

Owning institution

1. Harvard Library

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing action (note)

1. committed to retain