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Stories

  • Article

The making of ‘Quacks’

How do you create a medical comedy that’s authentic and laugh-out-loud funny?

  • Article

The doctor who challenged the unicorn myth

Our era of fake news and medical misinformation is nothing new. Estelle Paranque relays the thrusts and parries of a 440-year-old row over a magical cure-all, the unicorn horn.

  • Article

Graphic battles in pharmacy

James Morison’s campaign against the medical establishment inspired a wave of caricatures mocking his quack medicine.

  • Article

Rethinking the placebo effect

The placebo effect has long been harnessed for both legitimate and fraudulent use, but we’re only just discovering how and why our bodies respond positively to dummy drugs, as Anjuli Sharma reveals.

All stories (8)

Images

  • Song sheet with illustration: 'The quack doctor'.
  • Hogarth's Marriage a la mode, The Quack Doctor's Studio
  • A quack-doctor examining a urine flask. Oil painting.
  • A quack doctor irresponsibly dispensing his potions. Coloured lithograph.
  • A quack doctor irresponsibly dispensing his potions. Coloured lithograph.
  • A quack doctor treating her patient's chilblains. Engraving after H.B. Bunbury.
  • A Dutch quack doctor promoting his wares before an audience of townspeople. Etching.
  • A Dutch quack doctor promoting his wares before an audience of townspeople. Etching.
  • An itinerant quack-doctor. Oil painting by an English painter, mid-19th century.
  • An itinerant quack-doctor. Oil painting by an English painter, mid-19th century.
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Catalogue

All works (215)