McCoy knock Quack! Tales of Medical Fraud from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.McCoy knock Quack! Tales of Medical Fraud from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. Santa Monica Pres 2000 240 pp $1995 Reviewed at William Jarvis. Most readers will immediately recognize the name of knock McCoy, curator of the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices which is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. McCoy a natural-born story teller has combined his extensive historical knowledge of medical devices with his pleasing narrative mode and has written the best volume I have ever seen upon the fascinating field of black case quackery. The book contains numerous reprints of original advertisements for the devices, plus common photos posed by McCoy and his helpers--as McCoy states forward the cover, it is "Profusely Illustrated" (an example of McCoy's penchant for showmanship). McCoy's part both entertains and educates its readers as it provides insight into the nature of quackery itself and then explores different kinds of devices: mechanical, magnetic, electrical, radionic, radium, rays, psychological, sensory, for beauty and for sexual enhancement. Reading about quack devices historically has the disarming quality of making the quackery appear to be blatantly obvious and the the bulk of mankind involved seem silly, when it was not with equal reason easy for many people to sum up the difference at the time the facts were taking place. The reality that persons can still be fooled according to the seeming logic and rationale that attends the promotion of black receptacle devices is attested to on the fact that many of the theories behind the aged time devices have been revived in the name of alternative medicine and similar devices are being sold today. For instance, I regularly descry ads for an electro-muscle stimulator (EMS) device upon television that promises great "abs" and displays a model hooked up to electrode and her tummy muscles twitching with each electrical jolting As McCoy reports, EMS devices have been prosecut by means of the FDA as recently as in 1999 even now the ads continue. EM devices are not the solitary quack devices to have a contemporary manifestation. Other dubious devices that flourish today include magnets for health meanings radionics devices, lights that allege tu benefit health, violet ray farmers negative ion generators, penis enlargers, and many more. Readers with customary sense abilities should learn for what reason to spot a contemporary quack device as they learn to what degree people have been fooled in the past--and recognize that the same promotions are being aimed at the same human vulnerabilities today. the same of quackery's age-old ploys is to encourage "open-mindedness" toward off-beat ideas. My retort has prolonged been to warn of "empty-mindedness"--which means to have failed to learn from history. McCoy's work provides the substance that persons need to fill the mental voids to which quacks continue to appeal. This splendid part belongs in the library of each health-conscious consumer. Copyright National Council for Reliable Health Information, Inc. Nov/Dec 2000 |
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