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  • 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

  • A crowd watching a troupe of quack-doctors on a stage outside an inn. Oil painting by a Flemish painter, ca. 1640(?).
  • A crowd watching a troupe of quack-doctors on a stage outside an inn. Oil painting by a Flemish painter, ca. 1640(?).
  • A crowd watching a troupe of quack-doctors on a stage outside an inn. Oil painting by a Flemish painter, ca. 1640(?).
  • A quack doctor offering a gouty John Bull some medicine while conventional doctors are turned away; referring to British politics. Coloured lithograph attributed to J. Doyle.
  • A quack doctor offering a gouty John Bull some medicine while conventional doctors are turned away; referring to British politics. Coloured lithograph attributed to J. Doyle.
  • A quack doctor offering a gouty John Bull some medicine while conventional doctors are turned away; referring to British politics. Coloured lithograph attributed to J. Doyle.
  • Medical cautions : chiefly for the consideration of invalids. Containing essays on fashionable diseases, the dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms, an enquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters, on quacks, and quack medicine, and lady doctors. And an essay on regimen, very much enlarged ... / By James Makittrick Adair.
  • Medical cautions : chiefly for the consideration of invalids. Containing essays on fashionable diseases, the dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms, an enquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters, on quacks, and quack medicine, and lady doctors. And an essay on regimen, very much enlarged ... / By James Makittrick Adair.
  • Medical cautions : chiefly for the consideration of invalids. Containing essays on fashionable diseases, the dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms, an enquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters, on quacks, and quack medicine, and lady doctors. And an essay on regimen, very much enlarged ... / By James Makittrick Adair.
  • [Theatre programme for performances at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London by Maskelyne & Cooke, the Royal illusionists and anti-spiritualists with 4 plays (one about quack doctors : Decapitation, or no cure, no pay) and a display of Chinese plate dancing. Advert for E. Rimmel's perfumes and choice novelties on the back].
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