Library News
From the Archive: Quackery
Our Archive contains many things, including some medical tools of interest for their design, function, or history. Some tools haven’t changed for decades or even hundreds of years, and others may seem primitive or misguided in their design. We hope these glimpses into medical history will remind you that medicine is a practice, and always evolving.
Before 1906, the only protection American consumers had against buying fake medicine came from a handful of state-level laws. There was no federal oversight to ensure drugs contained the right ingredients and worked as intended. As a result, unscrupulous businesses could sell a host of ineffective and even harmful substances as “medicine.” The sale of intentionally ineffective medical products, that is, “quack medicine,” is different from natural or home remedies that are genuinely helpful. When asked about the history of fake medicine, GCSOM Faculty Jeffrey Pallas said, “The history of homeopathy is both fascinating and revelatory. The rigors of Evidence Based Medicine did not exist during the rise and heyday of homeopathy. The conflict between beliefs in homeopathy and contemporary science-based medical practice live on today, for example, in discussions about vaccine efficacy in treatment claims for Covid-19 through the present pandemic. These are often more political than scientific. An excellent history about homeopathy can be found in EMBO Reports, Volume 20 Issue 3, 1 March 2019, entitled ‘Homeopathy-where is the science?’”
The products shown here were advertised to cure, from left to right: boils, malaria, and “fever blisters,” a euphemism for oral herpes. In fact, the pills in each bottle are identical. They are 100% compressed dextrose, similar to Smarties candies. In fact, the pills in the 2 Humphrey’s bottles, marketed to treat 2 distinct conditions, were likely all made on a single machine from a single batch of powdered dextrose. They have no medical value whatsoever.
Note the Hoyt Logo, which incorporates the letters H-O-Y-T along with a stylized S probably meant to evoke the caduceus, the classic Greek symbol of medicine. Additional symbols of outstretched wings, filigree, and a woman sitting astride a lion all combine to suggest tradition and respectability where there is none. Without government regulation and the rigor of evidence-based medicine, even educated consumers were left to experiment with quack remedies.
These and other quackery items are available for viewing at the SOM Library and the Health Sciences Library.