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The Quack Doctor

thequackdoctor.com

The Quack Doctor investigates the patent remedies, devices and therapies advertised in the past - from popular brands to medical frauds.

History

’10’15’20’25
Posts
265 from 1 Jan 2009 to 14 Sep 2026
Posting
now and then (4 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://thequackdoctor.com/index.php/feed/

2026 4

  1. Dr Gun Wa’s Chinese Remedies
  2. The Rhycol Method
  3. Dr James’s Fever Powder
  4. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

2025 2

  1. The goat gland wizard of California
  2. Dr Buckland’s Scotch Oats Essence

2024 1

  1. Kimball’s Anti-Rheumatic Ring

2023 2

  1. BBC Radio 4 Best Medicine
  2. A Fortune Built on Sand: Health Grains

2022 1

  1. Rocks that Shock: the Hillman Electric Resort

2019 1

  1. Dangerous beauty: Madame Anna Ruppert

2018 1

  1. The alleged Dr Barber: a case of identity theft in 1912

2017 1

  1. Notorious Chrimes: The Blackmail Pills

2016 3

  1. Victorian asthma cigarettes: who was Dr Batty?
  2. A breath of maggoty air
  3. To raise false hopes: Antidipso

2015 4

  1. The mysterious Doctor Du Brange
  2. Dr Wheeler and the Bacillus of Death
  3. Maria Owen, the bogus lady doctor
  4. ‘Eat! Eat! Eat!’ Those notorious tapeworm diet pills

2014 10

  1. On thorny ground: the human x-ray scientists
  2. Detective Caminada and the quack doctors
  3. Avoiding the trickcyclist and nutpicker: First World War home remedies and miracle cures
  4. A devil of a cure: the Sa-Tan-Ic Tonic Laxative
  5. ‘A new sensation’: hair-brushing by machinery
  6. ‘A Damnable Villain’ part 2 – a free pony for your wife!
  7. ‘A Damnable Villain’ – Byron H. Robb and the Electro-Magnetic Brush Co.
  8. An inventor’s survival: Ramey’s Medicator
  9. Mademoiselle Cavania: England’s ‘only female doctor’?
  10. Mr Grimstone and the Revitalised Mummy Pea

2013 28

  1. Stay Vigorous at Seventy
  2. Narcoti-Cure: ‘Why smoke and spit your life away?’
  3. Dr MacKenzie’s Harmless Arsenic Complexion Wafers
  4. Failure of ‘606’
  5. The Acme Worm Bouncer
  6. I was a tub of fat!
  7. Cigares de Joy
  8. Merchant’s Gargling Oil
  9. Madame Fox’s Life for the Hair
  10. The sparkle of perfect health
  11. How to grow tall
  12. The Century Thermal Bath Cabinet
  13. Smedley’s Chillie Paste
  14. The intangible power that controls human destiny
  15. Hunt’s Remedy
  16. The Dolly Dimpler
  17. Godfrey’s Inhaler
  18. ‘No more ugly ears’: Claxton’s Patent Ear Cap
  19. Figuroids
  20. Dr Ralph’s Pills
  21. ADvent Calendar 1: The Health Jolting Chair
  22. The devil in disguise: Hall’s Coca Wine
  23. 10 Victorian products for Movember
  24. For the blood is the life
  25. A pleasant time and a pleasant tomorrow
  26. An ulcer as big as a hen-egg
  27. Wonder-workers and styptics
  28. Poison. To be applied night and morning.

2012 11

  1. Lazy salesmen and popular bachelors
  2. Don’t be gulled by misleading advertisements
  3. A nameless tramp’s discovery
  4. Bailey’s Rubber Complexion Brush
  5. Armbrecht’s Coca Wine
  6. ‘We are now making our usual getaway’: X W Wittman and the Diagraphoscope
  7. Guest Post – Dickens, Holloway and product placement
  8. A Lyrical Interlude
  9. Valentine’s Meat-Juice
  10. Ali Ahmed’s Treasures of the Desert
  11. Anti-Stiff – strengthens the muscles

2011 26

  1. The Mormon Elder’s Damiana Wafers – the most powerful invigorant ever produced
  2. If the patient is not alarmed
  3. The tracks of a spider whose legs had been dipped in ink
  4. To Short Persons
  5. Bomb the first sneeze with Kilacold
  6. The Voice of the People
  7. No More Baldheads, No More Dandruff
  8. Crossthwaite & Co’s Occult Lozenges
  9. Hearty and Vigorous to the Last
  10. Pockey Warts, Buboes and Shankers
  11. Dr W. S. Rice’s Rupture Method
  12. Busy curing a man in America
  13. A Wife is the Peculiar Gift of Heaven
  14. Bourbon Poultry Cure
  15. The Worm-Doctor of Shoreditch
  16. The Electropathic and Zander Institute
  17. The Ear-Doctor Fraud
  18. The Benefits of Phrenology
  19. Tuna – a vegetable compound
  20. Mother’s Friend
  21. Sago Jenkinson and the Case of the Witched Child
  22. Smith’s Live-Long Candy
  23. Curlypet
  24. The Worm Has Returned
  25. Antonius W. Van Bysterveld, Expert Inspector of Urine
  26. Torpid Liver Positively Cured

2010 53

  1. Dr Rock’s Political Speech to the Mob in Covent-Garden
  2. Sequah – a Victorian Celebrity Quack
  3. Paul Gage’s Tonic Antiphlegmatic Elixir
  4. You Needn’t be Bald
  5. The Balm of Zura, or Phoenix of Life
  6. Terradermalax – a skin laxative
  7. Girl vomited 87-inch worm – or did she?
  8. Dr A Wilford Hall’s Hygienic Treatment
  9. The Invisible Elevators for Short People
  10. Something to show and scare the people
  11. Dr Hammond and his Electric, Curative & Phosphoric Vitalizer
  12. ‘Like a half-felled cow’ – a case of arsenic poisoning in Victorian Scotland
  13. A miraculous change right away quick
  14. Atkinson & Barker’s Royal Infants’ Preservative
  15. Dr Walter’s Medicated Rubber Garments
  16. Munyon is ready…
  17. Angelick Snuff
  18. The Lambert Snyder Health Vibrator
  19. Gamjee’s Oriental Salve
  20. Professor Modevi’s Beard Generator
  21. Habitina – an infallible remedy for addiction
  22. Mayr’s Wonderful Stomach Remedy
  23. The repeated delight of so divertising a remedy
  24. The Poor Man’s Friend
  25. The ‘Instra’ Warmer
  26. The Aqua Antitorminalis for Griping in the Guts
  27. Barrett’s Mandrake Embrocation
  28. Cameron the Piss-Prophet
  29. Capsuloids Hair Restorer
  30. Vigor’s Horse-Action Saddle
  31. Homeopathy made plain to the meanest capacity
  32. The Continued Adventures of Baron Spolasco
  33. Baron Spolasco and the Wreck of the Killarney
  34. Tucker’s Asthma Specific
  35. The tragic story of Ching’s Worm Lozenges
  36. Omega Oil
  37. Whitehead’s Essence of Mustard
  38. The Bloom of Ninon
  39. The Zerret Applicator
  40. McAlister’s All-Healing Ointment
  41. Dr Velpeau’s Magnetic Love Powders
  42. Lardner’s Prepared Charcoal for the Teeth
  43. Ede’s Patent American Eye Liquid
  44. Dr Pierce’s Nasal Douche
  45. Gordon’s Vital Sexualine Restorative
  46. The Elixir of Opium podcast, plus award news
  47. The Brinkerhoff System
  48. The Pure Drops of Life
  49. The Famous Montpellier Venereal Little Bolus
  50. McMunn’s Elixir of Opium
  51. Bond’s Marvellous Corn Cure
  52. The Nose Machine
  53. The very thing for ladies: Harness’ Electric Corset

2009 117

  1. Make-Man Tablets
  2. A Poem on Christmas Day
  3. The Etherial Oil of Mustard for the Gout
  4. Dr Carter Moffat’s Ammoniaphone
  5. The Cordial Balm of Rakasiri – part 2
  6. The Cordial Balm of Rakasiri – part 1
  7. Letter from An Old Surgeon
  8. Allan's Anti-Fat
  9. Laxora
  10. Nelson's Mixture for Diseases of the Lungs
  11. Salt Regal
  12. Nutt's Trusses for Ruptures
  13. Some remarkable cases of worms
  14. The Famous Little Sugar Plums
  15. Baron Schwanberg's Liquid Shell
  16. Swaim's Panacea – part 2
  17. Swaim's Panacea – part 1
  18. Dr Young’s Rectal Dilators
  19. Dr Lowther's Powders and Drops
  20. Magic Foot Drafts
  21. Dr Junod's Exhausting Apparatus
  22. Wine of Cardui
  23. Bile Beans, part 2
  24. La Vida Vibrator
  25. Allcock's Porous Plasters
  26. Homocea
  27. Dr. Sibly's Re-Animating Solar Tincture
  28. Centaur Liniment
  29. Sparks and Son India-Rubber Urinals
  30. Hystericon
  31. Gibson's Cordial Balls
  32. Empress Josephine Face Bleach
  33. Pigeon Milk, the Gentleman's Friend
  34. Dr Rock's Restorative Viper Drops
  35. Ludlam's Electric Rubber
  36. Pure and Healthy Leeches
  37. Bailey's Light Spinal Stays and Invisible Crutches
  38. Ambition Pills
  39. Every Woman's Flesh Reducer
  40. The Modena Fossil
  41. Derk P. Yonkerman's Tuberculozyne
  42. Albert's Grasshopper Ointment
  43. Radam's Microbe Killer
  44. Charles Forde's Bile Beans for Biliousness
  45. Dr MacKenzie’s Improved Harmless Arsenic Complexion Wafers
  46. Eno’s Fruit Salt
  47. Atkinson's Registered Rectum Supporter
  48. Jackson's Asthmatic Candy
  49. Henry Thompson's Real Cheltenham Salts
  50. J Gerred, Medical Herbalist (and poet)
  51. Walter De Roos' Compound Renal Pills
  52. The Guttae Vitae, or Vegetable Life Drops
  53. Dr Ball's Ivory Eye Cups
  54. Mr. Lewis's Incomparable Sheep-Drench
  55. Dr Scott's Aperitive Vase
  56. Bell's Anti-Prandium
  57. Cross's Gout and Rheumatic Pills
  58. Kernick's Vegetable Worm Lozenges
  59. Johnson's American Pig Spice
  60. Weston's Wizard Oil
  61. Goss & Co.
  62. Compound-Magnetic Bands and Pads
  63. Alex Ross's Complexion Globules
  64. Tricosian Powder, Huile de Cachmere, etc.
  65. Hance's Candy
  66. Sir John Hill's Pectoral Balsam of Honey
  67. Rowland's Alsana Extract
  68. Dr Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People
  69. Dr. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets
  70. Grimstone's Eye Snuff
  71. Cosmeticon
  72. Samaritan Water
  73. Dr. Stolberg's Voice Lozenge
  74. Wainwright's Staffordshire Cordial
  75. Champion Damiana Wafers
  76. Crinilene
  77. Keating's Cough Lozenges
  78. Taylor's Anti-Epileptic Medicine
  79. Clarkson's Specific for Bad Legs
  80. The Royal Essence for the Hair
  81. Beetham's Corn & Bunion Plaster
  82. Alfred's Royal Composition
  83. Cuticura Soap and Ointment
  84. Abernethy's Pile Ointment
  85. York Medicinal Soap
  86. Hood's Sarsaparilla
  87. Basil Burchell's Purging Sugar Plumbs for Worms
  88. Stevens's Ointment for Horses
  89. Dr. Haines' Golden Specific
  90. Butler's Vegetable Restorative Tooth Powder
  91. To Fat Persons
  92. Thompson & Capper's Corn and Wart Remover
  93. Walker's Jesuits Drops
  94. I Cure Fits!
  95. Corns, Bunions and Deformed Nails
  96. Carrington's Life Pills
  97. White's Restorative Salo Pills
  98. Holland's Balsam of Spruce
  99. Dr. De La Motte's Sassafras Chocolate
  100. Monteet's Infallible Medicines
  101. Renovating Essence of Azilica
  102. Laffere's Worm Powders
  103. Newton's Restorative Tooth Powder
  104. Lockyer's Sulphur Hair Restorer
  105. Edwards' Instantaneous American Harlene
  106. Rees's Compound Essence
  107. Infallible German Corn Plaister
  108. Cupiss's Constitution Horse Balls
  109. Self-Adjusting Curative and Electric Belt
  110. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup
  111. Dr. Steers's Opodeldoc
  112. Page Woodcock's Wind Pills
  113. The Vital Regenerator
  114. Barclay's Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops
  115. May's Celebrated Love Lozenges
  116. Widow Welch's Pills for ladies
  117. Solomon's Drops