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Quack, Quack, Quack, on view at the Grolier Club from
September 18th to November 23rd 2002, showcases the often
flamboyant sellers of nostrums and patent medicines over the
course of four centuries, through visual, often
entertaining, material.
The exhibition is divided into ten sections. These range
from the ways of itinerant quacks, their use of various
extravagant marketing techniques, the frequent bitter
rivalry between sellers of panaceas, each with his or her
own theory supported by dubious claims of efficacy; to
quacks in the arts and, finally, to the first governmental
restrictions on the more flagrant abuses.
The quack over time has been both a popular and profitable
subject for artists and writers from Europe and the United
States. Among the well-known artists and writers represented
in the exhibition are works by William Hogarth,
Honoré Daumier, Maxfield Parrish, Jules Chéret
and H. G. Wells.
Yet, some of the most graphic and spirited work has been
created by lesser known or unknown artists. These include a
sixteenth-century Dutch engraving, Hyacum et Lues
Venera, showing the administration of a new cure for
syphilis; Medical Confessions of Medical Murder (c.
1840), a twelve-scene wood engraving, in which James
Morison, an ingenious marketer of widely advertised pills,
takes physicians' statements egregiously out of context and
even includes a testimonial from William Shakespeare;
Nancy Linton, a hand-colored lithograph of the same
period, illustrates how she looked after taking Swaim's
Panacea; The Health Jolting Chair, an 1885 color
lithograph of a seated woman, demonstrates the promised
"most highly prized Feminine Attractions," thanks to the
wonders of electricity; The Travelling Quack, an 1889
British political cartoon, opposes William Gladstone's
continuous promotion of his "Infallible Home Rule
Ointment."
Not surprisingly, the quack survives to the present day,
promising cures for the incurable and drugs, foods and
appliances to make us thinner, handsomer and healthier.
Altogether, Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in
Prints, Posters, Ephemera and Books comprises 185 items, all
drawn from the collection of William H. Helfand, who has
curated the exhibition. Mr. Helfand has written, lectured
and exhibited extensively on the history of drugs and
pharmacy, as well as on related prints, caricatures, posters
and ephemera. He brings both scholarship and a sense of
humor to this exhibition.
The fully illustrated 250-page catalogue
will be for sale at the Grolier Club.
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