#quack medicine

[creature-wizard]

The thing about the statement "X woo therapy is based in science, actually!" is that it's not usually wrong, but it also overlooks the part where the woo uses the scientifically demonstrated thing as a springboard to launch itself into sheer goofiness. Like using the fact that different colors have been scientifically demonstrated to have an effect on your mood (and therefore, can somewhat improve your mental health and subsequently your physical health) to go and claim that the right color of light can cure cancer and diabetes and literally every ailment.

Same goes for the double slit experiment; the experiment showed that putting a monitoring device on the photons interfered in such a way that it changed the behavior of the photons. The woo crowd used that as a springboard to launch into the total nonsense of "your perception literally physically alters the world around you!" Like no Jan the presence of a monitoring device making photons act different doesn't mean we can all just believe our way out of chronic pain.

#science #pseudoscience #quackery #quack medicine #pseudomedicine #medicine #woo

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Homeopathy is fake medicine.

#Jonathan Stea #James Randi #homeopathy #alternative medicine #quackery #quack medicine #fake medicine #pseudoscience #woo #religion is a mental illness

[madlyfluffy]

Not sure if it's still there, but last time I checked there was this Revigator water jar (crock?) for sale at a local antique store. I'd love to own it as part of my collection but I'm concerned about the level of radium and other toxic materials inside. I also don't have a glass case or anything to display it in, but the jar comes with a lid so that might help contain possible radium dust? Last image is what it looks like on the inside. Piece is from the 1920s/1930s.

Any radium experts out there? Thoughts???

#radium #uranium #uranium glass #antiques #antiques collecting #nuclear history #quack science #quack medicine #snakeoil #would really love to own this but whereee am i going to keep 25 pounds of toxic materials in a shitty apartment

[vintage-tech]

Things I never expected to see in real life: a full bottle of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, a quack medicine (produced 1875-1968) for comfort from your period.

Ads, in no particular order, published in magazines in 1923, 1939, 1940, 1945, 1946, 1947, and 1967:

In 1906, the US Government enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required producers of patent medicines, like Mrs. Lydia Pinkham’s Medicine Company, to disclose the ingredients in their products on the product’s label. Once the alcohol content of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was displayed on its label, customers discovered that the product contained fifteen percent alcohol. Mrs. Lydia Pinkham’s Medicine Company had recently decreased the alcohol content from twenty percent alcohol.

#vintage #technology #quack medicine #medical

[weirdyearbook]

Source details and larger version.

Like a drug: my collection of vintage medicine can be habit forming.

#medicine #doctor #quack medicine #vintage yearbook #1910s #vintage illustration #yearbook #illustration

[historybizarre]

From heroin to houses, Sears had it all. But before the Chicago business became America’s largest retailer—and affixed its name to the world’s tallest building—Sears started by selling time.... In 1888, Sears issued his first catalog, a thin mailer that featured only watches and jewelry. According to his apocryphal ad copy, which he always wrote himself, Sears claimed “THE LOWEST PRICES ON EARTH.” A consummate huckster, he soon started selling sundry items: buggies, bicycles, firearms, baby carriages and more.

#history #sears catalog #20th century #quack medicine #sears

[gwaindrifter]

If you ever need to know whether or not chiropractic is legit, just know that it's inventor, Daniel Palmer, was was an anti-vax magnet healer occultist who his entire life went back and forth on whether he invented the practice after hitting a deaf man on the back so hard he could hear or if he got the secrets to chiropractics from ghosts

#quack medicine #chiropractic #daniel David Palmer #palmer college #pseudoscience #growing up in the quad cities i learned a lot about this quack

[emmaklee]

galvanic battery / 19th century

worn against the skin, galvanic batteries purported to purify the blood & cure headaches, toothaches, & rheumatism

via the Pitt Rivers Museum’s excellent amulet collection, “Small Blessings”

#amulet #quack medicine

[maypoleman1]

14th March

Leeches

Source: Sinai Park House website

Today is the most propitious day for blood-letting, a once popular medical treatment based on the belief that human blood contained toxins and ‘humours’ that were the cause of many common diseases and that periodically releasing a flow of blood, usually from the forearm, was both curative and preventive. As many people blanched at the thought of allowing a surgeon to open their veins, a less frightening alternative was the use of the common leech, a water-dwelling predatory worm. Not only did these parasitic bloodsuckers remove blood without the patient having to observe the flow directly, their secretions also contain an anaesthetic, making the whole process painless. Such was the popularity of leeches as alternatives to the knife, doctors often took to taking a jarful of leeches on their visits in case the need arose. The perjorative term for doctors of “leech” derives from this practice.

Belief in the benefits of blood-letting survived well into the twentieth century although the practice has now been debunked: blood loss is something to be avoided, not voluntarily sought out. However, the medicinal use of leeches has not entirely died out. As the creatures secrete an anti coagulant, they can still be used in vascular microsurgery by surgeons, to keep the patient’s circulation going when working on small blood vessels.

#english folklore #quack medicine #leeches #blood letting #vascular microsurgery

[ads-of-yore]

#vintage ads #vintage advertising #mother's friend #quack medicine #snake oil

[gwydionmisha]

A Deep Dive into the Deadly World of Victorian Patent Medicine

#Patent Medicine #Victorians #Quack Medicine

[creature-wizard]

The human body is incredibly complex and there are like five zillion ways anything can go wrong with it; so anyone claiming that their product can cure a bunch of entirely unrelated health issues (EG, cancer, COVID, diabetes, and psoriasis) is 100% bullshitting you. It's kind of like claiming that you can fix your torn jeans, rusty pipes, broken TV, and burned out refrigerator bulb with nothing more than a hammer and nails; or worse, a rock picked up from a parking lot.

#quack medicine #pseudoscience #cancer mention' #covid mention #healthcare #alternative healing #health #healing

[neocurio]

fROM THE ABSORPTION TREATMENT 1906 W.O. COFFEE M.D.

#dr coffee #quack medicine #1900s #absorption treatment #neocurio

[tomorrowusa]

There is a Confederate cosplayer who is in favor of gay “conversion therapy” who is running for governor of Pennsylvania. Of course he is a Trump Republican.

On Friday, Reuters published a heretofore unseen picture of Mastriano wearing a Confederate uniform in a faculty photo at the Army War College, where he used to work before retiring from the Army. People familiar with the photo told Reuters that faculty members had been given the option of dressing as a historical figure, but he's the only one who decided to dress up like a traitorous slavery defender.

Abraham Lincoln, savior of the Union, must be wondering WTF happened to his party. And Mastriano is running in Pennsylvania, site of the Union victory at Gettysburg.

Mastriano can't claim he's honoring any ancestors, he can't claim he's honoring his heritage or even his own regional history — really, all he shares with Confederate soldiers is a penchant for white supremacist bullshit. If he were trying to honor his own heritage, he probably would have worn a red blouse. Though I suppose a black shirt might suit him better.  

Those who celebrate traitors from America’s past seem more likely to betray America in the future.

Also, Doug Mastriano makes Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis seem moderate. From @MeidasTouch.

Doug is fine with politically cross-dressing as a Confederate slaver while wanting to persecute LGBTQ kids with quack therapy.

Mastriano is only 3 percentage points behind Democrat Josh Shapiro in the race for governor according to a recent Emerson College poll. That’s within the margin of error.

Don’t let a fascist become governor by failing to register and vote. In a turnout election, we all need to turn out.

Be A Voter - Vote Save America  

#pennsylvania #doug mastriano #trump republicans #confederate cosplay #white supremacists #the lost cause #lgbtq+ #gay conversion therapy #quack medicine #election 2022 #midterm elections #register and vote

[vintage-tech]

1923: “The wonderful curative power of Radium has been known for years. No matter what your ailment or how long you have had it, we will gladly let you try the Degnen’s Radio-Active Solar Pad Radium Appliance at our risk.” And yours!

#what has solar power got to do with this? #radium #quack medicine #antique #1923 #medical #technology #advertisement

[in-sightpublishing]

The American Medical System and Physicians 3: Professor Benoit Desjardins, MD, PhD, FAHA, FACR, FNASCI on Burnout, Quack Medicine, and Litigious American Culture

The American Medical System and Physicians 3: Professor Benoit Desjardins, MD, PhD, FAHA, FACR, FNASCI on Burnout, Quack Medicine, and Litigious American Culture

                          Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen Numbering: Issue 30.E, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (24) Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com Individual Publication Date: May 22, 2022 Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2022 Name of Publisher: In-Sight…

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#American #Benoit Desjardins #medicine #physicians #quack medicine #Science #United States