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Previous Volume 349:1580 October 16, 2003 Number 16

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By William H. Helfand. 252 pp., illustrated. New York, The Grolier Club, 2002. (Distributed by University of Chicago Press, Chicago.) $40. ISBN 0-910672-40-7.

The popular circus showman P.T. Barnum once warned that "humbug" was everywhere in the medical profession. In Quack, Quack, Quack, William Helfand, a historian of pharmacy, proves Barnum right. A chronicle of quackery in picture and prose, Helfand's book examines the depths of medical chicanery in Western culture over the past 400 years. "Quacks have been with us forever," explains Helfand. Never "static," quackery has "modified its offering to adjust to new therapeutic discoveries and new means of communication," as well as "to almost any prevailing political and regulatory system."

Helfand demonstrates the adaptability of quackery with 183 fascinating images . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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