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Book Cover
Book
Author Martyr, Philippa

Title Paradise of quacks : an alternative history of medicine in Australia / Philippa Martyr
Edition Paperback edition
Published Paddington, N.S.W. : Macleay Press, 2002

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  610.994 Mar/Poq  AVAILABLE
Description 394 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
regular print
Contents Introduction. Meet Dr. Quack -- 1. "Not much professional skill", 1788-1837 -- 2. The paradise of quacks, 1837-1886 -- 3. The empire strikes back, 1886-1914 -- 4. War and law, 1914-1960 -- 5. Alternatives and complements, 1960-2000 -- Glossary of terms
Summary 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 fields̕ 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
Notes Includes index
Bibliography Bibliography: pages [343] -381
Subject Quacks and quackery -- Australia -- History.
Alternative medicine -- Australia -- History.
Medicine -- Australia -- History.
Quackery -- history.
History, Modern 1601-
SUBJECT Australia. https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D001315
Australia. https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D001315
Genre/Form History.
ISBN 1876492066 :
1876492074