Roll up! Roll up!
Welcome to The Quack Doctor - the home of history's patent medicines, dubious devices, and the people who peddled them. The Quack Doctor looks into the stories, surprises and scandals surrounding the advertised medicines of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries - from popular over-the-counter remedies to outright criminal frauds.
Read on ...The alleged Dr Barber: a case of identity theft in 1912
In 1912, detectives discovered that a local GP wasn’t all he seemed. Sensational news reports described his dramatic attempts to escape arrest.
Read MoreNotorious 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.
Read MoreTo raise false hopes: Antidipso
‘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.
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