•  Book Reviews

Quack! Tales of Medical Fraud From the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
By Bob McCoy
Santa Monica Press
240 pages $19.95

Quick: What do the Robut-Man, the Saddle, the Sanden Electric Herculex No. 8, the Wimpus, the Potentor, and the Obturator have in common? If you guessed that they are all pre-Viagra -- way, way pre-Viagra -- devices to improve male sexual potency, you must be one or more of the following:

a) an excellent candidate to become a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"

b) someone who is particularly concerned about erectile dysfunction, or

c) an avid reader of Quack! Tales of Medical Fraud from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.

Quack! is a delightfully eclectic and entertaining compendium of the greatest hits of the Hippocratic con parade, or -- as the book jacket accurately proclaims -- "a smorgasbord of medical lunacy." Packed with illustrations, photos, and hilarious ad copy touting some of the past century's most ludicrous attempts to rip off the gullible, the sick, the desperate, and the vain, the book is a testament to human genius and creativity for committing fraud -- and the astonishing capacity for self-deception that makes it all possible.

The author, Bob McCoy, is also the founder of the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, which he established in Minneapolis in the late 1980s. The museum got its start when a friend of McCoy's offered him a so-called "psychograph" machine from the 1930s. The instrument was a manifestation of the popularity of the "science" of phrenology, a system of reading the bumps and lumps on people's craniums to determine their character traits. The machine was designed to measure the size and shape of someone's head and print out a personality chart.

McCoy fixed the machine, began offering readings as a spoof, and gradually accumulated more and more quack items, acquiring them from the American Medical Association, the Food and Drug Administration, and other sources. If the museum is anywhere near as fascinating as the book, it's well worth a visit.

Quack! draws on the collection and features delectable anecdotes about creams, potions, and pills as well as electric weight-loss and muscle-exercise devices, anti-masturbation penis-rings, magnetic shoes and combs, ultraviolet-ray generators, and other loony goodies. And some, of course, were not only useless, but dangerous. (Anyone out there want to boost the body's ability to fight disease by drinking several glasses of radioactive H2O a day? McCoy might have some extra dispensers of radium water lying around.)

The audacity of the purveyors of this junk is what truly boggles the mind. Here is the claim from a pamphlet promoting Boyd's Miniature Galvanic Battery, a worthless disc of metal that allegedly sent waves of electrical current through the body: "The Miniature Battery will cure the following diseases, which are nearly all caused from the effects of impure blood: Rheumatism, Gout, Swollen Joints, Neuralgia, Dyspepsia, Lumbago, Aches and Pains, Pain in the Bones, Sciatica, Scrofula, Salt Rheum, Ulcers and Sores, Tumors, Boils, Carbuncles, Chills, Vertigo, Nervous and General Debility, Loss of Manhood, Impotency, Seminal Weakness, Female Complaints, Barrenness, Liver Complaint, Fever and Ague, Bright's Disease, Kidney Disease, Diabetes, Catarrh, Sore Throat, Bronchitis, Asthma, Jaundice, Pleurisy, Diphtheria, Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis, Constipation, Hysteria or Fits, Heartburn, Weak Stomach, Flatulence, Quinsy, Pustula Affections, Piles, Hypochondriasis, Deafness, Disease of the Heart, Dropsy, Gravel, Spinal Diseases, Paralysis, Weak Back, Wasting, Decay, etc., etc."

Is there anything this miracle battery couldn't cure? Absolutely. Unlucky victims of yellow fever, cholera, dysentery, bloody urine, inflammation of the bowels, pneumonia, spasms, worms, and several other conditions were advised not to use the product. Adults were supposed to wear the device around-the-clock until at least a month after the illness was cured, children under 6 were to wear them only at night. In "extreme cases" such as "the entire loss of manhood," a double dose -- two batteries -- was recommended. But the battery, warned the promotional material, was never to be shared with anyone else, to avoid transmitting diseases. (It was probably just coincidence that battery-sharing would also reduce sales volume.)

One of my favorite characters here is Margarette Merlain, the "discoverer" of a breast-enhancing herb that she marketed as the Venus Carnis bust developer. McCoy reproduces her personal testimony about the product's efficacy -- a key element of her company's marketing strategy. "After I had been taking the preparation for a week," she wrote in the ad copy, "I noticed a peculiar pricking sensation in my bust, and upon an examination I found to my utter astonishment that the flat, flabby bust which had hung so lifeless and of which I was so thoroughly ashamed had now become much firmer and more solid and had considerably increased in size."

It's easy, of course, to poke fun at all this stuff, especially if you're as skeptical of cure-all fads as I am. But I genuinely empathize with the victims; the ability and the willingness to suspend disbelief is as touching as it is pathetic. The more absurd the claim, the more desperate someone has to be to let themselves be duped.

And lest we forget, it's not just old-timers who've been fooled by such things. A few years back, I would lie in bed late at night riveted by the stream of infomercials shimmying across the TV screen pushing wildly varied items at the drowsy and susceptible. There were the readings offered on the Psychic Friends Network (hosted by the lovely Dionne Warwick, no less), Victoria Principal's secret system of beauty creams and moisturizers, and my favorite -- the Stimulator.

This device, similar to a gas-grill igniter, sold for close to $100 and was said to relieve pain when buzzed against the skin. The show featured a parade of testimonials from people -- most of them elderly and arthritic, as I recall -- marveling at how all their aches vanished under the Stimulator's wondrous effects. "But how exactly does it work?" asked my friend Steve over and over again as we watched. "How does it work?"

The infomercial, of course, never bothered to answer that question. I was tempted to buy it just to find out ... and, I confess, I held out a faint hope that it might help on those rare occasions when I experienced bodily pains of some sort. So I was happy to read in Quack! that the Stimulator did ... nothing. Nada. Zip. Yes, it applied a spark to the skin. But a tonic for pain? The FDA took its stand on that question in 1995 by initiating proceedings against the manufacturer, Universal Management Systems of Akron, Ohio, although not before close to a million customers had shelled out good bucks to purchase the device. The FDA's action may have put a damper on the firm's future prospects, but it didn't stop other companies from marketing similar devices ... for even more money than Universal Management asked for the Stimulator.

And yet, though I know better, I doubt I'll ever be fully immune to the brilliantly manipulative appeals of quack marketers. I often feel a twinge -- not of hope, exactly, but of a wistful desire to have hope -- when I hear of some alleged new cure or treatment for an ailment afflicting me or someone I know, however peculiar or unscientific the claim. Because the human need to sustain hope in hopeless circumstances runs deep -- and will undoubtedly furnish McCoy with ample material for sequels to this enlightening book.

-- David Tuller, a former staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has written for The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Salon.com. He is also the author of Cracks in the Iron Closet: Travels in Gay and Lesbian Russia (Faber &Faber, 1996).

First published January 19, 2001
Last updated November 19, 2007
Copyright © 2001 Consumer Health Interactive

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