An Adventure in Medical Hyperbole

deformities were exhibited -- luckily patrons could receive “immediate medical assistance” from the handy doctor-poseurs waiting nearby: a medicine show also traveled from town to town, featuring popular songs, acrobatics, and other forms of entertainment with an “intermission” during which medical practitioners pitched their wares to the crowd); Selling Sex Cures (pretty much what it sounds like: books, pamphlets and the like aimed at giving young men and women – separately, of course – the information they needed to learn to enjoy childbirth, prevent venereal diseases, avoid becoming blind from too much masturbation or fornication, etc.); Addiction & Electricity Cures (in which popular early American pre-AA anti-addiction cures such as the “Keeley Cure” invented by an American doctor in the mid-1800s which promised to help patients hooked on cigarettes, tobacco, and narcotics, are featured); Quacks in the Arts (featuring prints and illustrations of medicine shows or quacks at work); and finally The Evils of Quackery (displaying books, pamphlets, broadsides, and illustrations exposing false medical cures and promises). There is also an unnamed, unnumbered case which is full of doctor’s calling cards, early photographs and illustrations of pseudo-doctors, and (oddly enough) valentines one could send to one’s doctors as well as some other wonderful ephemera.

While some more conventionally-minded Americana collectors might scoff that such a show falls outside of the classical definition of Americana, in this reviewer’s opinion such arguments do not hold up, for American popular culture is a vibrant and growing area in Americana scholarship and one this exhibit explores thoroughly and in a thoroughly enjoyable though covertly educational fashion. Of the hundred or so books, pamphlets, illustrations and broadsides there are too many amusing pieces to name a favorite, but one of the most intriguing and memorable items surely has to be item #10 in Case 2, an anonymous English broadside circa 1803 which quotes a “Dr. Benjn. Franklin of America” as endorsing “The Cerevista Anglia, or, an English Diet Drink.” According to the broadside, Franklin “was cured of an obstinate Scorbutic affection by its use.” Aficionados of Americana would be as foolhardy as the late patrons of these medical poseurs were they to miss the chance to take in this original and riveting exhibit.

"Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera & Books" can be viewed at The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York, NY, 10022, (212) 838-6690, from 18 Sept.-23 Nov. 2002, Mon.-Sat. 10 1m-5pm. Admission is free.

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An Adventure in Medical Hyperbole

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An Adventure in Medical Hyperbole

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