Page 180 - (DK) Danger! Open with Extreme Caution!

KILLER CURES

The swindlers who peddled fake
medicines to make money from the sick
were known as “quacks.” Although their
cures didn’t necessarily kill people,
When the bubonic plague killed millions
remedies supplied by these quacks could
be dangerous and leave the patients even Toad treatment
worse off. Other tonics and treatments in Europe during the 14th century,
tried, unsuccessfully, to save lives.
were so useless that they did nothing at all kinds of weird remedies were
all. On offer here are some examples of They included pressing dried-out
the disease to “suck out infected
pus,” as well as drinking a mix of
toxic therapies and ridiculous remedies. toads to the boils caused by
eggshells and molasses.

No more pain
Opium is a drug extracted from
the poppy flower. Opium dissolved
in alcohol (and called laudanum)
was very popular in the Victorian
era as a painkiller or sleeping pill.
It took awhile for people to realize
that it was dangerously addictive.

Mercury menace
In the age of “heroic
Spot the mistake 1850, many aggressive
medicine,” from 1780 to
Joshua “Spot” Ward was were used by doctors.
but harmful treatments
an 18th-century quack who One of these was calomel
invented remedies called (mercury chloride), which
“Ward’s Pill” and “Ward’s Drop” was taken to encourage
that made him rich. Made with patients to “release
various poisonous substances, impurities.” Sadly, it
Ward’s harmful remedies caused also made them lose their
violent sweating as the body tried hair and teeth, develop
to expel the toxic ingredients. ulcers, and even die.

180
(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.