Lessons from the History of Medical Delusions by Hooker, Worthington - 1850

New York: Baker & Scribner, 1850. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 8vo. 105 pp. Original drab boards, recently rebacked with brownish-green Japanese tissue, cream-colored pastedowns and endpapers preserved. This copy, in boards, never had 2-page advert leaf that was inserted in the cloth case-bindings. Fascinating and methodical annihilation of quack medicine from the medieval to the "modern" era, still highly readable after 168 years. Includes detailed dissections of Perkins' Tractors, Fabricius Hildanus' ointment, pneumatic medicine, tar water, the sale of nostrums, Stahl's anima, and homeopathy in particular. Hooker's analysis is alarmingly "modern" in its methodology, decrying the "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy (Latin: "after this, therefore because of this") which continues to the present day. Hooker's work received the Fiske Fund Prize Dissertation of the Rhode Island Medical Society. ¶ Cordasco, "Homeopathy in the United States: A Bibliography of Homeopathic Medical Imprints, 1825-1925," no. AA244.