Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine, by Erika Janik
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Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine, by Erika Janik
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An entertaining introduction to the quacks, snake-oil salesmen, and charlatans, who often had a point Despite rampant scientific innovation in nineteenth-century America, traditional medicine still adhered to ancient healing methods, subjecting patients to bleeding, blistering, and induced vomiting and sweating. Facing such horrors, many patients ran with open arms to burgeoning practices that promised new ways to cure their ills. Hydropaths offered cures using “healing waters” and tight wet-sheet wraps. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby experimented with magnets and tried to replace “bad,” diseased thoughts with “good,” healthy thoughts, while Daniel David Palmer reportedly restored a man’s hearing by knocking on his vertebrae. Lorenzo and Lydia Fowler used their fingers to “read” their clients’ heads, claiming that the topography of one’s skull could reveal the intricacies of one’s character. Lydia Pinkham packaged her Vegetable Compound and made a famous family business from the homemade cure-all. And Samuel Thomson, rejecting traditional medicine, introduced a range of herbal remedies for a vast array of woes, supplemented by the curative powers of poetry. Bizarre as these methods may seem, many are the precursors of today’s notions of healthy living. We have the nineteenth-century practice of “medical gymnastics” to thank for today’s emphasis on regular exercise, and hydropathy’s various water cures for the notion of regular bathing and the mantra to drink “eight glasses of water a day.” And much of the philosophy of health introduced by these alternative methods is reflected in today’s patient-centered care and holistic medicine, which takes account of the body and spirit. Moreover, these entrepreneurial alternative healers paved the way for women in medicine. Shunned by the traditionalists and eager for converts, many of the masters of these new fields embraced the training of women in their methods. Some women, like Pinkham, were able to break through the barriers to women working to become medical entrepreneurs themselves. In fact, next to teaching, medicine attracted more women than any other profession in the nineteenth century, the majority of them in “irregular” health systems. These eccentric ideas didn’t make it into modern medicine without a fight, of course. As these new healing methods grew in popularity, traditional doctors often viciously attacked them with cries of “quackery” and pressed legal authorities to arrest, fine, and jail irregulars for endangering public safety. Nonetheless, these alternative movements attracted widespread support—from everyday Americans and the famous alike, including Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and General Ulysses S. Grant—with their messages of hope, self-help, and personal empowerment. Though many of these medical fads faded, and most of their claims of magical cures were discredited by advances in medical science, a surprising number of the theories and ideas behind the quackery are staples in today’s health industry. Janik tells the colorful stories of these “quacks,” whose oftentimes genuine wish to heal helped shape and influence modern medicine.From the Hardcover edition.
Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine, by Erika Janik - Amazon Sales Rank: #965740 in Books
- Brand: Janik, Erika
- Published on: 2015-03-10
- Released on: 2015-03-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .99" w x 5.95" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine, by Erika Janik From Booklist Conventional medical treatment in nineteenth-century America was a high-risk, low-reward venture—a dangerous and not very effective path to recovery. Dubbed “heroic therapy,” the usual remedy for most ailments involved some scary combination of bloodletting, blistering, and purging (with liberal administration of laxatives and emetics). The side effects of this therapy, along with dismal results, opened the door for a variety of alternative healing methods. Historian Janik chronicles the rise and fall and renewed popularity of alternative medicine. Alternative healers tended to reach out to women (recognizing their role as caregivers in the family) and tapped into the prevailing mind-set of Americans, who thought of themselves as self-reliant. Some of these remedies have persisted and prospered: manual manipulation and adjustments (by chiropractors and osteopaths), hypnosis, and the use of botanic medicines. Others have had less success and staying power: phrenology (reading the topography of the skull), magnetic healing, and hydropathy (treatment with cold water). Oscillating between arousing feelings of hope and doubt, alternative medicine in America endures. --Tony Miksanek
Review “A must-read for medical history buffs, whether mainstream or maverick.”—Publishers Weekly“A thorough, informative history of the many eccentric narratives that make these quack sciences so interesting and important to modern medicine.”—Kirkus Reviews“Historian Janik chronicles the rise and fall and renewed popularity of alternative medicine.”—Booklist“Erika Janik’s survey of alternative therapies hums with strange ideas and even odder characters.”—Boston Globe“[Janik] offers full and fair accounts of the origins, rationales and fortunes of [these] alternative practices.”—Wall Street Journal“[Janik] is especially good at delineating the history of women.”—CHOICE, recommended review“A must read for those in the natural and alternative health industry.”—The Herbal Collective“Marketplace of the Marvelous is well served by Janik's training as a historian. The observations of the misfit margins that she explores are both keen and cutting—she is as evenhanded as she is graceful when describing the turbulent first half of the nineteenth century, and draws clear connections between modern medical theory and its early influences.”—The Source Weekly“Erika Janik’s Marketplace of the Marvelous is a rare achievement: both entertaining narrative for the curious reader and valuable resource for the serious scholar. I wish I’d had it when writing my biographies of prominent nineteenth-century women, as easily seduced by the promised cures of pseudoscience as so many others in the era of brutally “heroic” medicine, with its tortuous treatments of bloodletting, blistering, and mega-doses of mercury. Janik rightly traces many of our contemporary notions of healthy living to early crackpot remedies—drinking plenty of water, regular exercise, massage, herbal medicines. In this remarkable volume Janik summons up a vanished world of visionaries and cranks who were indeed both marvelous and modern.” —Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters and Margaret Fuller: A New American Life“Astronomy was preceded by Astrology. Modern medical science was preceded by snake oil and homeopathy. Janik tells a compelling story, in graceful prose, of what happens when error, greed and fashion rule the marketplace of medical ideas. What Lewis Thomas called ‘The Youngest Science’—medicine based on cell and molecular biology—is young, indeed; and this fine book reminds us of how far we have come.”—Gerald Weissmann, MD, author of Epigenetics in the Age of Twitter “An engaging romp through more than a century of irregular medicine, from the kookiness of phrenologists and mesmerists to the excessive claims of snake-oil salesmen and Thomsonian botanical practitioners. Erika Janik explores these medical byways with both skepticism and respect, showing how their often-derided practitioners were pioneers (at times unwittingly) in the exploration of placebo effects, psychotherapy, the importance of exercise, disease prevention, and patient engagement in their own care—elements that have been gradually absorbed into mainstream medical practice. It’s a fun read and eye-opening from start to finish.” —David Hellerstein, MD, professor of psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, and author of Heal Your BrainFrom the Hardcover edition.
About the Author Erika Janik is the producer and editor of the Wisconsin Public Radio series Wisconsin Life. She is the author of four award-winning history books. Her work has appeared in Smithsonian, Mental Floss, and Midwest Living, among other publications. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.From the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ By Grady Harp This very intelligent, informed, fascinating and entertaining book will likely appear on the bestseller list - if the PR for it is on its toes. Erika Janik has researched the history of medicine, particularly medicine in the United States from the 17th century to the present and has uncovered some gripping information that should alter the manner in which holistic medicine is viewed today. While more and more people are struggling to get off the obesity wagon and the chronic disease train and finally paying attention to nutrition, forsaking processed foods and fast foods and refined sugar etc, and acknowledging the importance of daily exercise, paying attention to pollution and its effects on our environment, and embracing Eastern medicine in the form of acupuncture and meditation – while these changes are gaining hold of our thinking, Erika Janik has explored the origins of the current forms of medical advances and made some rather startling discoveries that deserve widespread acknowledgment.In a book sprinkled with old photographs and minibiographies of such people like Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Mary Baker Eddy, Samuel Thomson and many more – names that put faces to incidents and trends so that we can connect more easily – Janik discusses the origins of snake oil (many types actually contained viable medical cures such as quinine for malaria, etc), phrenology, hydropathy (the importance of baths and of hydration by drinking copious amounts of water each day as a means of staying healthy or combating disease), homeopathy, patent medicines, osteopathy, chiropractic, hypnosis, phlebotomy (blood letting) and other branches of alternative medicine. She also discusses the rather primitive status of medicine before the 20th century – doctors were not in general well-educated nor particularly intelligent and certainly not interventional diagnosticians but rather the man who was called when auntie felt puny to offer very basic archaic thoughts. Yes, it is all very humorous from one stance, but all of her information, once thoroughly digested, reveals that much of what is practiced today has its roots in some of what was thought to be quackery – only now we recognize those simple things like ‘medical gymnastics’ as healthy exercise programs, the use of increased water intake to hydrate the body, and many of the other things that the ‘scientific revolution’ deemed quackery are now accepted as viable modes of therapy for many diseases.Erika Janik writes extraordinarily well. She has taken the time to research her subject thoroughly and provides copious documenting footnotes and references, while at the same time she has a keen sense of humor that places all of this information in perspective. Brilliantly written and thunderously appealing, this is a book every doctor should be required to read, and everyone concerned about the rise of today’s machine driven medicine should own. The book will make you laugh and will also raise an eyebrow and utter a gasp. Very highly recommended for everyone. Grady Harp, December 13
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Here, Drink This - A Fascinating History of Medicine By Tamara Thorne Marketplace of the Marvelous is a wonderful read if you're interested in the history of medicine in the United States. The war between "regular" allopathic and "irregular" alternative medicine goes back to the beginning and in this book, Erika Janik ably describes the evolution of the two paths in our country and how they have come to integrate in many ways.After an introduction which is one of the best overall essays on the subject I've ever read, Janik delves into the details of the origins and evolution of irregular methods and the people behind them. Herbal cures, water cures, phrenology, Mesmerism, homeopathic cures, manipulation (osteopathic and chiropractic) and patent medicines are all here. And more.As a fan of The Road to Wellville (book and movie), I got a special kick out of the water cures, but there's so much more. So many cures (regular and irregular) were crazy, many were useful, and so many people were hawking their various wares that it was difficult to know what was best. And the war between the two branches, each calling the other's methods completely useless or poisonous (frequently correctly) is just fascinating.While reading head bumps has fallen out of practice, some of the alternative methods thrive today and many have been inculcated into "regular" medicine. Just think: at one time exercise and drinking enough water were considered irregular quackery! Watching this evolution -- along with the stories of the outrageous cures (on both sides of the aisle) is an absolute delight. This book is full of fascinating facts and loaded with information. I came away better informed and knowing this is a book which will have a permanent place in my shelves.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Failed Theories of Healing and the Emergence of Modern Medicine By Gadget Fan This book provides a comprehensive account about the various theories of treating the sick that arose in the 19th century, and how these roots survive into the present. It describes the interactions and competitions between them, and what remnants have survived into the present. It runs the gamut from failed theories such as hydrotherapy and phrenology, curing through patent medicines or mental techniques, to early scientific technologists. It is full of details I didn't know about, such as Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, which was sold for over half a century, and promoted by millions of almanacs sent out in English, Spanish, and German. Many newspaper accounts from the time are drawn upon as sources.I was aware of most of the high points of the book, but the level of analysis here is much more thorough than just knowing that these different theories were out there. The author has done a tremendous amount of research to bring the 19th century alive. Detailed accounts are provided of encounters with particular practitioners, their tactics and their critics. At the same time, the developing professional education systems are covered, licensing, and numbers of practitioners trained, numbers of patients, and legal issues. For example, a chapter near the end traces the diverging paths of osteopathy and chiropractic, both with their roots in pre-technological treatment of pain, with osteopathy moving into mainstream medicine, and chiropractic remaining on the edge. I didn't know that during WWII, the US military took in only MDs (removing them from the towns in which they had practiced), thus advancing the prominence of Osteopaths, who people then started going to for their medical needs. It closes with a chapter about the roots of alternative medicine and its presence today. If you are interested in the medical explorations of the past and roots of today's medicine, this book is a very informative read.
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