James Harvey Young, the foremost expert on the history of medical frauds, finds quackery in the 1990s to be more extensive and insidious than in earlier and allegedly more naive eras. The modern quack isn't an outrageous-looking hawker of magic remedies operating from the back of a carnival wagon, but he knows how to use antiregulatory sentiment and ingenious promotional approaches to succeed in a "trade" that is both bizarre and deceitful. In The Toadstool Millionaires and The Medical Messiahs, Young traced the history of health quackery in America from its colonial roots to the late 1960s. This collection of essays discusses more recent health scams and reconsiders earlier ones. Liberally illustrated with examples of advertising for patent medicines and other "alternative therapies," the book links evolving quackery to changing currents in the scientific, cultural, and governmental environment. Young describes varieties of quackery, like frauds related to the teeth, nostrums aimed at children, and cure-all gadgets with such names as Electreat Mechanical Heart. The case of Laetrile illustrates how an alleged vitamin for controlling cancer could be ballyhooed and lobbied into a national mania, half the states passing laws giving the cyanide-containing drug some special status. And AIDS is the most recent example of an illness that, tragically, has panicked some of its victims and members of the general public into putting their hopes in fake cures and preventives. Young discusses the complex question of vulnerability--why people fall victim to health fraud--and considers the difficulties confronting governmental regulators. From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, the annual quackery toll has escalated from two billion to over twenty-five billion dollars. Young helps us discover why. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. This collection of essays from a noted expert in quackery studies ( The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America , LJ 3/1/68, now available in paperback from Princeton) covers medical quackery from the turn of the century to the present. It is easy to become absorbed in Young's curious and even humorous examples of quackery, from the cure-all sarsaparilla root and opiates to Laetrile and crushed cell cures. However, Young emphasizes that the treatments he describes are not merely entertaining but also extremely dangerous in themselves or because of their substitution for accepted treatments. With the current push to reduce the Food and Drug Administration's regulatory power over experimental AIDS drugs and the increased regulation of nutrition statements in advertising, the topic of quackery is very timely. American Health Quackery , which includes new and previously published essays, should be in public and academic libraries. - Eric D. Albright, Galter Health Sciences Lib., Northwestern Univ., Chicago Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. Quackery is thriving in the high-tech 90's, according to Young (American Social History/Emory Univ.), author of Toadstool Millionaires (1961), which traced the history of quackery in America up to the Food and Drugs Act of 1906, and Medical Messiahs (1967), which brought the story forward to 1966. Here, Young has edited and updated some of his articles and lectures from the past 25 years, bracketing them with two new essays--one a personal piece on his own continuing fascination with the subject, the other a timely discussion of quackery and AIDS. Young looks at quackery's appeals within the context of America's intellectual history, noting how quackery has benefited from our belief in liberty and in the natural right to succeed. His concern about the persistence of medical fraud is evident in his lecture to health professionals reminding them of their duty to serve as the first line of defense against it, and in his speech before the FDA's policy board urging more vigorous enforcement of regulations. Numerous 19th-century advertisements for patent medicines are included here, inviting comparisons with current nutrition claims and alternative-therapy promotions. Young discusses cancer quackery at some length (especially the Laetrile episode) and observes that it has succeeded by playing on fear, promising painless treatment, claiming miraculous scientific breakthroughs, attributing all cancers to a single cause treatable by a single therapy, and accusing the medical community of conspiring to