Georgian

Nutt's Trusses for Ruptures

STeel Spring or Jointed Trusses for the help and cure of Ruptures for Men, Women and Children in the Navel, Cod or Groin. Belt Trusses, made without Iron or Steel Bow, the Belt or Girdle is with Neats Leather, Silk or Velvet, being very easy, with a Spring good for all tender Bodies, especially for […]

Some remarkable cases of worms

This post departs from the usual because it’s not directly related to an advertised remedy, and no one involved is out to make money from selling cures. While I was researching the Sugar Plums for Worms, however, I came across many interesting stories showing the impact of parasites on individuals’ health, and the heroic efforts […]

The Famous Little Sugar Plums

Source: The General Advertiser, 19 Jan 1748 . I mentioned the Purging Sugar Plumbs for Worms early in the life of this blog, but didn’t include much beyond the ad itself, and I hardly had any readers then anyway, so I think it’s worth revisiting – especially as this advert is so delightfully worded and […]

Baron Schwanberg's Liquid Shell

By the KING’S Royal Letters Patent, SCHWANBERG’s LIQUID SHELL, DAILY confirmed, by Experience, not only to be a sure DISSOLVENT for the STONE and GRAVEL, but a most powerful, safe, and efficacious Medicine in the Spasmodic and Windy Cholic, Pains in the Breast, Hypochondriac Disease, and all Kinds of Flatulences, Diarræa, or Looseness; Cardialgia, or […]

Dr Lowther's Powders and Drops

MR. ELIAS GROVES, of Clapham, attests, that he was afflicted upwards of a Year and half with a most violent windy Disorder, to so great a Degree, that the Wind would roll about, as it were, all over his Body, and occasion him frequently to be discharging it in a surprising Manner out of his […]

Dr. Sibly's Re-Animating Solar Tincture

Googling for info on this remedy will get you quite a few results giving some variant on: “Dr.” Sibley, an English patent medicine seller of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, even went so far as to claim that his Reanimating Solar Tincture would, as the name implies, “restore life in the event of sudden death”. […]

Dr Rock's Restorative Viper Drops

I originally posted this on my (now defunct) other blog before I started The Quack Doctor, so I thought I’d move it over here as not many people will have seen it before: Are your spirits hurried and your brain in need of comforting? Are you suffering from the effects of hard drinking? Do your […]

The Modena Fossil

. This is perhaps the most bizarrely named product yet featured on this site. It is not surprising that it should be obscure to the modern observer, but in fact it made no sense to the denizens of the early 19th century either. . . ……………HEALTH ……….A MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERY. ……….The Modena Fossil ……….A SPEEDY […]

Mr. Lewis's Incomparable Sheep-Drench

Although Mr Lewis admits in this ad that the causes of sheep rot were imperfectly understood, he is on the right lines when he refers to “insects in the liver.” The liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica L. was often noticed in sheep that had died of the rot, but there was a lot of controversy as to whether they were a […]

Sir John Hill's Pectoral Balsam of Honey

Sir John Hill (the “Sir” came from a Swedish title) started out as an apothecary and also tried his hand at acting before becoming a prolific writer. He edited the British Magazine from 1746-50 and produced a huge variety of works including plays, advice on marriage and child-rearing (under the pen-name The Hon. Juliana-Susannah Seymour), […]