Research Catalog

Paradise of quacks : an alternative history of medicine in Australia / Philippa Martyr.

Title
  1. Paradise of quacks : an alternative history of medicine in Australia / Philippa Martyr.
Published by
  1. Sydney : Macleay Press, 2002.
Author
  1. Martyr, P. J. (Philippa J.)

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Details

Description
  1. 394 p. : ill.; 24cm.
Summary
  1. Paradise of Quacks is both a sparkling, witty book and a full-length scholarly history of medicine in Australia. It is a history of scientific medicine that looks at the fields disreputable origins in the convict colony and its struggle for respectability. It is also a history of alternative medicine that covers the growth of popular non-scientific therapies. It is a clearly-written work that will appeal to those working in the fields of both professional medicine and alternative health therapies. It will also provide many fascinating insights for their patients. The book begins with the British discoverers of Australia and the First Fleet. It examines the colonial surgeons and their now unbelievably crude ideas and practices. It covers both the growth of scientific knowledge and the clamour for medical legislation in the mid-nineteenth century. It looks at the great conflict in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries between university-educated practitioners and the devotees of popular practices such as homeopathy, electrotherapy, hydropathy, allopathy, and botanical medicine. Subsequent chapters discuss the impact of the two world wars, the treatment of venereal disease, the great fear over polio, and the movement of alternative therapies into the mainstream in the last ten years.
Subject
  1. Quackery
  2. Quackery > history
  3. History, Modern 1601-
  4. Quacks and quackery > Australia > History
  5. Medicine > Australia > History
  6. History, Early Modern 1451-1600
  7. Australia
Genre/Form
  1. History
  2. History.
Contents
  1. Introduction. Meet Dr. Quack -- 1. "Not much professional skill", 1788-1837 -- 2. The paradise of quacks, 1837-1886 -- 3. The empire strikes back, 1886-1914 -- 4. War and law, 1914-1960 -- 5. Alternatives and complements, 1960-2000 -- Glossary of terms
Owning institution
  1. Harvard Library
Bibliography (note)
  1. Includes bibliographical references (p. [343]-382) and index.
Processing action (note)
  1. committed to retain