Author: Quackwriter

BBC Radio 4 Best Medicine

Tune in to Best Medicine on BBC Radio 4, 6.30pm, 14 November 2023 (or listen later at BBC Sounds and all podcast platforms). Hosted by Kiri Pritchard-McLean, it’s an entertaining panel show that looks at the strange, the amusing and the uplifting sides of medicine, past and present. I talk about some inhalation inventions that […]

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A glass bottle containing sand.

A Fortune Built on Sand: Health Grains

In early 20th-century New York, a mailman introduced a new patent medicine called Health Grains for indigestion – but the ingredients were far from beneficial. Mrs Bertha Bertsche, a 38-year-old widow, could often be found supervising the pans on the kitchen range at her home in Glebe Avenue, Westchester Square, New York. Inside the pans, […]

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Men and women in 19th-century clothing sit on benches in an underground cave.

Rocks that Shock: the Hillman Electric Resort

In 1880s Georgia, a Baptist minister accidentally discovered rocks that appeared to emit a therapeutic power of electricity. As their fame spread, the location became a popular resort for people in search of healing.

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Dangerous beauty: Madame Anna Ruppert

A version of this article first appeared on the Wellcome Library blog on 3 February 2016. A box of confectionery arrived at the green room of the Princess’s Theatre, Oxford Street, on 6 November 1894 … with no well-wishes attached. The recipient was Anna Ruppert, whose new venture as a theatre manager and actress was […]

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The alleged Dr Barber: a case of identity theft in 1912

A horse, tacked up but riderless, grazed peacefully on the north bank of Oregon’s Siuslaw River one December morning in 1904. When the search party saw it, they shouted out in hope, but no human response broke the after-storm silence of the damp air. Dr Richard Henry Barber of Gardiner, OR, hadn’t been seen since […]

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Richard and Edward Chrimes

Notorious Chrimes: The Blackmail Pills

In 1890s London, the ‘Lady Montrose Pills’ blackmail scheme efficiently and heartlessly targeted more than 8,000 victims. In this comprehensive account of the case, Dick Weindling introduces the Chrimes brothers, who manufactured this audacious scam. In April 1896 adverts began to appear in newspapers across the country. Addressed to ‘Ladies Only’, the advertisement promoted ‘Lady Montrose’s […]

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Dr Batty's Asthma Cigarettes

Victorian asthma cigarettes: who was Dr Batty?

While browsing your local newspaper in the 1890s, an asthma-cure advertisement might distract you from tales of the latest sensational crimes. ‘Agreeable to use, certain in their effects, and harmless in their action, they may be safely smoked by ladies and children,’ ran the promotional copy. The product was Cigares de Joy, handy little cigarettes […]

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Maggot sheds at Jerusalem Farm, pictured in the Leeds Mercury, 31 July 1911. (British Newspaper Archive)

A breath of maggoty air

No one likes to be the hapless person who wanders into the garage and finds a forgotten turkey carcase humming with maggots and surrounded in a fug of pungent effluvia. I suppose it would be a great story if this had been a defining moment of my teenage years, inspiring me to embark on a […]

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Antidipso British Monthly Dec 1903

To raise false hopes

‘Tears and prayers are of no use,’ warned the eyecatching pictorial advertisement in the Penny Illustrated Paper. It was perhaps the most truthful statement Arthur Lewis Pointing, proprietor of the anti-drunkenness powder, Antidipso, had ever come up with. Or rather, that the advertiser of a famous American nostrum had ever come up with, for Pointing […]

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Du Brange mentioned in The Times, Sat 30 Oct 1869 (www.newspapers.com)

The mysterious Doctor Du Brange

While researching in the British Newspaper Archive, Kilburn historians Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms discovered a practitioner with the unusual name of Du Brange. They were intrigued to find that he appeared in court several times. I’m intrigued too, as Du Brange has a lot of similarities with other London medical advertisers I’ve studied – especially […]

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