by Geoffrey Churchman

Compiled and written by Lydia Kang MD and Kate Pedersen, this was published in 2017, thus three years before Big Pharma hastily concocted their shonky substance touted as a cure for the covid scamdemic, to their enormous profit, and without doubt the worst example of quackery inflicted on the World.

Nevertheless, this book provides an entertaining and disturbing summary of just about everything else that has been thought up by charlatans and get rich quick types to our times — and unfortunately often adopted by the establishment.

Reading through the many bizarre notions, formulations, contraptions and procedures you can’t help wonder with just about all them, “what were they thinking?”

The first third of the book covers substances including mercury, arsenic radium, strychnine and cocaine — the last probably made people feel better even if it didn’t cure them of anything.

Ranging from coffee enemas to putting leeches on your tonsils, this book explores the fascinating and usually pseudoscientific lengths people have gone to cure the incurable.

Probably the worst of the lot was lobotomy — boring into the skull and mostly randomly severing connections in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. (Look it up).

The writing makes the science and stories accessible and it often reads fairly conversationally with a heavy dose of sarcasm and terrible puns. There are plenty of historical pictures and figures with fantastic captions. Even Leftists, fooled by Fauci/Bloomfield/Her and still fooled, may find themselves chuckling or shaking their heads. Maybe readers would like some extra information about how disastrous these ‘inventions’ were in practice, but maybe not.

At 365 pages it’s pretty comprehensive and should reinforce ‘healthy’ skepticism about what Big Pharma produce and claim about it, as well as the modern-day snake oil salesmen who claim fluoride is good for you.

Hardcover, about 20 x 15 cm in size. In America it sells for $15 which ought to be about NZ $20 but at present is about $26.