Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

You know those books that lend themselves beautifully to reading in small chunks?  I finally finished one of those!  I received an ARC of Quackery:  A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything ages ago, but life got in the way (because CHILDREN).  I finally tucked it into my bathroom drawer, made significant progress on it, and then carried it around with me to various places until last weekend, when I finished it on my last night in Rhode Island.

It was seriously fascinating.

Quackery is written in a gossipy, conversational style, and yet it packs in the information pretty impressively.  It’s divided into sections, like ‘Elements,’ which are further divided into chapters, such as ‘Mercury’ and ‘Gold’.  My favorite parts, however, were very possibly the ‘Hall of Shame’ bits sprinkled throughout.  (Seriously.  Do not miss the ‘Women’s Health Hall of Shame.’)  Read this book and you’ll learn enough about the crazy side of medicine to satisfy just about any layman I can think of.  (I will say that I found one tidbit that Google considered an urban legend, but the other bits of oddity that I chose to investigate further were corroborated online.)  This isn’t so much a book that you read in one sitting–it would get to be a bit much–but as something to dip into when you have an odd moment, I’d recommend it wholeheartedly.  After all, who wouldn’t want to learn about the tobacco smoke enema kits that were once strategically placed along the banks of the Thames?

I’ll just leave that there…