PARADISE OF QUACKS 1788 – 2002 : An Alternative History of Medicine in Australia

A history of professional medicine in Australia and its struggle for respectability. A counter-history of alternative medicine and the growth of popular non-scientific therapies. (Gift inscription on prelim) #0121R Paradise of Quacks is both a sparkling, witty book and a full-length scholarly history of medicine in Australia. It is a history of scientific medicine that looks at the fields?îÔÇó disreputable origins in the convict colony and its struggle for respectability. It is also a history of alternative medicine that covers the growth of popular non-scientific therapies. It is a clearly-written work that will appeal to those working in the fields of both professional medicine and alternative health therapies. It will also provide many fascinating insights for their patients. The book begins with the British discoverers of Australia and the First Fleet. It examines the colonial surgeons and their now unbelievably crude ideas and practices. It covers both the growth of scientific knowledge and the clamour for medical legislation in the mid-nineteenth century. It looks at the great conflict in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries between university-educated practitioners and the devotees of popular practices such as homeopathy, electrotherapy, hydropathy, allopathy, and botanical medicine. Subsequent chapters discuss the impact of the two world wars, the treatment of venereal disease, the great fear over polio, and the movement of alternative therapies into the mainstream in the last ten years. 394 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

• Introduction. Meet Dr. Quack
• 1. “”Not much professional skill””