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Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Audiobook
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Publisher Description
What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth?
Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine—yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison—was dosed like Viagra.
Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices. Ranging from the merely weird to the outright dangerous, here are dozens of outlandish, morbidly hilarious "treatments"—conceived by doctors and scientists, by spiritualists and snake oil salesmen (yes, they literally tried to sell snake oil)—that were predicated on a range of cluelessness, trial and error, and straight-up scams. This book seamlessly combines macabre humor with science and storytelling to reveal an important and disturbing side of the ever-evolving field of medicine.
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"[Huber's] delivery is a good fit for the bleakly absurd, often macabre tone of the audiobook."
— AudioFile
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“Entertaining and informative.”
— Publishers Weekly
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About the Authors
Lydia Kang is an author of young adult fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. She is also an internal medicine physician. She is a graduate of Columbia University and New York University School of Medicine, and she completed her training at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Follow her on Twitter (@LydiaYKang) and Instagram (@LydiaKang).
Nate Pedersen is a librarian, historian, and writer in Oregon. He is a Community Librarian with Deschutes Public Library and serves on the Board of Directors for the Deschutes County Historical Society & Museum. His journalism has appeared in the Art of Manliness, the Guardian, Trail Runner, and The Believer.
About Hillary Huber
Hillary Huber, a Los Angeles–based voice talent with hundreds of commercials and promos under her belt, was bitten by the audiobook bug in 2005. She now records books on a regular basis and has been nominated for several Audie Awards and won numerous Earphones Awards.