When I was younger, medical history was not my forte. But as the years have ticked on and my own health concerns loom on the horizon, I’ve found myself wondering about how the current state of medicine came to be. Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything was my first earnest, prolonged trip into medical history, and I was more than pleasantly surprised at its casual language and engaging narrative. There were some elements that left something to be desired, however.

Authored by Lydia Kang MD and Nate Pedersen, Quackery takes a segmented, structured approach to discussing the various methods and madness humans have labeled “medicine” throughout history. Continue reading →