James Harvey Young describes the development of patent medicines in America from the enactment in 1906 of the Pure Food and Drugs Act through the mid-1960s. Many predicted that the Pure Food and Drugs Act would be the end of harmful nostrums, but Young describes in colorful detail post-Act cases involving manufacturers and promoters of such products as Cuforhedake Brane-Fude, B. & M. "tuberculosis-curing" liniment, and the dangerous reducing pill Marmola. We meet, among others, the brothers Charles Frederick and Peter Kaadt, who treated diabetic patients with a mixture of vinegar and...

James Harvey Young describes the development of patent medicines in America from the enactment in 1906 of the Pure Food and Drugs Act through the mid-1960s. Many predicted that the Pure Food and Drugs Act would be the end of harmful nostrums, but Young describes in colorful detail post-Act cases involving manufacturers and promoters of such products as Cuforhedake Brane-Fude, B. & M. "tuberculosis-curing" liniment, and the dangerous reducing pill Marmola. We meet, among others, the brothers Charles Frederick and Peter Kaadt, who treated diabetic patients with a mixture of vinegar and...