We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,567,479.57 | Books Available: 795,668 | Members Online: 23

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Quacks and Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey

Quacks and Crusaders The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley Norman Baker and Harry Hoxsey
Author: Eric S. Juhnke

One promoted goat gland transplants as a remedy for lost virility or infertility. Another blamed aluminum cooking utensils for causing cancer. The third was targeted by the Food and Drug Administration as "public enemy number one" for his worthless cures. John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey were the ultimate snake oil salesmen of the ... more »twentieth century. With backgrounds in lowbrow performance—-carnivals, vaudeville, night clubs—-each of these charismatic con men used the emerging power of radio to hawk alternative cures in the Midwest beginning in the roaring twenties, through the Depression era, and into the 1950s. All scorned the medical establishment for avarice while amassing considerable fortunes of their own; and although the American Medical Association castigated them for preying on the ignorant, this book shows that the case against them wasn’t all that simple. Quacks and Crusaders is an entertaining and revealing look at the connections between fraudulent medicine and populist rhetoric in middle America. Eric Juhnke examines the careers of these three personalities to paint a vision of medicine that championed average Americans, denounced elitism, and affirmed rustic values. All appealed to the common man, winning audiences and patrons in rural America by casting their pitches in everyday language, and their messages proved more potent than their medicines in treating the fears, insecurities, and failing health of their numerous supporters. Juhnke first examines the career of each man, revealing their flair as businessmen and propagandists-—with such success that Brinkley and Baker ran for governor of their states and Hoxsey had thousands of supporters protest his "persecution" by the FDA. Juhnke then investigates the identity, motives, and willingness to believe of their many patients and followers. He shows how all three men used populist rhetoric-—evangelical, anti-Communist, anti-intellectual—-to attract their clients, and then how their particular brand of populism sometimes mutated to anti-Semitism and other sentiments of the radical right. By treating the incurable, Brinkley, Baker, and Hoxsey took on the mantles of common folk crusaders. Brinkley was idolized for his goat gland cures until his death, and Hoxsey’s former head nurse continued his work from Tijuana until her death in 1999. In considering who visits quacks and why, Juhnke has shed new light not only on the ongoing battle between alternative and organized medicine, but also on the persistence of quackery-—and gullibility—-in American culture.

ISBN-13: 9780700612031
ISBN-10: 0700612033
Publication Date: 10/2002
Pages: 224
Rating:

Currently 4/5 Stars.

4 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 1
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Biographies & Memoirs >> General
Biographies & Memoirs >> True Crime >> Crime & Criminal Biographies
Medicine >> General

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Quacks and Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey

Loading...