quack remedies

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 […]

Magic Foot Drafts

RHEUMATISM Cured Through the Feet Without Medicine An external cure so sure that the makers send it FREE ON APPROVAL. Try it. Send your name and address to the makers of Magic Foot Drafts, the great cure for every kind of rheumatism; Chronic or Acute, Muscular, Sciatic, Lumbago, Gout, etc., no matter where located or […]

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 […]

Derk P. Yonkerman's Tuberculozyne

Consumptives There is Hope for You! Derk P. Yonkerman, Specialist, discoverer of a remarkable Cure for Consumption. To every consumptive person there is hope of life and health, for, incredible as it may seem, a specific which cures Consumption has at last been found. Seeking year after year, working early and late, […]

Radam's Microbe Killer

Famous for its trademark showing someone walloping the living crap out of a reanimated skeleton (if skeletons can be said to possess any living crap), Radam’s Microbe Killer was a fraud. Its inventor, William Radam, published a book, Microbes and the Microbe Killer (189o) describing at great length his quest for a cure for his […]

Walter De Roos' Compound Renal Pills

Here’s another product from the enigmatic Dr De Roos, who once again uses the ploy of warning the punters against charlatans. The Renal Pills were still available in the early 20th century, when the results of analysis were reported in More Secret Remedies. The pills were made of sodium carbonate, soap, a resin that might have […]

The Guttae Vitae, or Vegetable Life Drops

Although no proprietor is shown in the following advertisement, the Vegetable Life Drops were one of several cures touted under the name Dr Walter De Roos. De Roos was an enigmatic character and the name was purported to be an alias for one John (or George) Robinson, who might well have bought the business in 1858 from brothers Alfred and Samuel Barker. […]

Bell's Anti-Prandium

Image: Daguerreotype of the Duke of Wellington in 1844 Cashing in on the Duke of Wellington’s death in order to sell fart pills quite frankly seems a bit distasteful to me: VERBUM SAT.—Our Immortal Wellington clearly died from an attack of Indigestion. All who suffer from Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Cardialgia, Eructations, Fla- tulency, Torpidity of […]

Cross's Gout and Rheumatic Pills

This remedy was not widely advertised and I don’t have much information about it, but I like the way the typography is laid out in the original, so have tried to reproduce it as far as possible, within the limitations of WordPress formatting. There will be more from The Western Mail soon, as it’s an excellent […]