A Foul Practice: Quack Medicine

A Foul Practice: Quack Medicine

In an age of limited medical knowledge, widespread disease and little regulation, quack medicine offered hope, clarity and control, while conventional treatments brought pain, confusion and high cost. Read on to discover why people turned to quack medicine, and learn of three popular remedies which illustrate their appeal and dangers.

'Official' medicine

Before the Medical Act 1858, almost anyone could call themselves a doctor. They were expensive, scarce in rural areas, and often little better than quacks. Treatments included bloodletting, purging and blistering, all painful and frightening.

Disease and death were part of daily life, especially for children. Smallpox, tuberculosis, typhus, diphtheria, cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles, mumps, whooping cough and influenza were common. Highly contagious and often epidemic, these diseases could leave survivors with lifelong complications.

Surgery was worse. With no anaesthetics or antiseptics, operations were agonising and deadly; mortality rates reached 80%. Surgeons wore blood and pus-stained gowns as a mark of honour. Surgery was a last desperate resort, viewed with horror.

Anyone needing medical attention had a poor outlook.

Quack medicine

Faced with a choice of 'grin and bear it', why not try the alternative? Even today, with a superior understanding of medicine, people still turn to alternative cures. Quack remedies seemed gentler, cheaper and more hopeful.

Sold in brightly labelled bottles or presented as scientific instruments, often bearing royal endorsements, they carried an air of authority. Advertising was the only real limit; no proof of effectiveness was required. When doctors failed, as they often did, hopeful-sounding cures became a last resort.

Quack medicines were marketed with dramatic claims, glowing testimonials and pseudoscientific jargon. Newspapers were full of miracle cures. In a world without consumer protection, personal endorsements were powerfully persuasive.

Many concoctions contained alcohol, opium or herbs, offering real, if temporary, relief. People trusted herbal and home-based treatments. Promises included restoring balance, cleansing the blood or correcting nervous weakness. Some cures framed illness as a moral failing, offering redemption from loss of manhood or excess passion. Other used biblical or mystical language, appealing to faith and the unknown.

In truth, quack medicines didn't need to work. They needed only to promise. Often, the real effect was emotional; a sense of hope, reassurance and action. But such comfort came with risks.

Godfrey's Cordial

In the 1800s, nearly every working-class home kept a bottle of Godfrey's Cordial. Sweet-tasting and deceptively soothing, it was a desperate parent’s best friend, an unsuspecting infant’s worst enemy.

Invented by Thomas Godfrey in the early 1700s, the recipe was never patented. After his death, druggists began producing their own versions under the same name. Some credited Dr Benjamin Godfrey as the inventor, a marketing fiction.

Touted as a cure for coughs, colds, gripes and restlessness, the cordial was widely used by mothers to calm teething babies or keep children quiet during long workdays. Its secret was laudanum, a potent opiate. Mixed with treacle, spices and water, it tasted harmless, but wasn’t.

Even small doses could suppress breathing; regular use led to addiction, malnutrition or death. Infants dosed with the syrup slept long hours, failed to feed, and quietly wasted away. In an age of high infant mortality, Godfrey’s Cordial claimed countless lives. Survivors often showed delayed development.

With long factory hours and no childcare, mothers turned to anything that brought peace. A penny’s worth of cordial worked like magic, or so it seemed.

Advertisements for Godfrey's Cordial first appeared in newspapers in the 1730s and were prolific from then on throughout England. It took another 100 years for reports of infant deaths to appear. 

By the mid 1800s, reformers began raising alarms. Coroners and medical officers reported high rates of infant deaths linked to opium-laced syrups. A parliamentary bill in 1857 sought to restrict opium sales. Stricter controls followed in the early 20th century.

The true number of deaths linked to Godfrey’s Cordial remains unknown. Official records often used vague terms like failure to thrive, convulsions or debility. But the toll, especially among working-class families, was significant.

Electro-Magnetism
In 1847, the Stamford Mercury reported on a three-week-old baby poisoned by an overdose of Godfrey's Cordial. Limp and barely alive, the child was unresponsive to standard treatments. Surgeon W J Tubbs of Upwell turned to elector-magnetism, sending shocks through the spine and heart. The baby's heartbeat revived. After hours of stimulants, heated flannels and oil skin wrappings, the child recovered.

Electro-magnetism was then promoted as a mysterious modern force to stimulate nerves and vital fluids. Magnetic belts, bracelets and insoles, containing at most a weak charge, were sold widely. The Harness Electric Corset claimed to reshape the figure and strengthen internal organs.

Electrotherapy machines delivered mild shocks with complex devices full of dials and wires, often underpowered or fraudulent. Bathing parlours offered little more than a tingle. Dr Scotts Electric Hairbrush claimed to cure baldness via static charge.

Overuse could cause burns, spasms or nerve damage. As medical understanding advanced, many electrical cures were banned, regulated or discredited.  

Radium

Discovered by Marie Curie in 1898, radium was initially hailed as a miracle substance. By the early 1900s it featured in a wave of quack cures and cosmetics. Face creams, soaps, powders, toothpaste and lipstick containing radium claimed to rejuvenate the skin, restore youthful glow and stimulate cell renewal.

Early signs of harm went unheeded. Marie Curie often carried radium in her pocket and suffered burns on her hands, but didn't connect the symptoms. Others dismissed similar effects as mild irritation.

The dangers became clear in the 1920s during the Radium Girls case. Young women painting glow-in-the-dark watch dials were told to lick their paintbrushes to form a fine point. Radium built up in their bones, with devastating consequences. Employers denied responsibility, claiming the girls had syphilis or were already unfit for work.

In 1927, wealthy American industrialist Eben Byers began taking Radithor daily, convinced it boosted his health. He died in 1932 of cancers caused by its radium content. His death drew global attention and helped prompt regulation against radioactive 'cures'.