marketplaceBy Erika Janik
Beacon, 337 pages

(Bibliothèque de Montréal)

 

Critique du Wall Street Journal

Book Review: ‘Marketplace of the Marvelous’ by Erika Janik

Alternative medicine boomed in the 19th century, with proponents pushing wild herbs, cold baths, hypnotism and more. 

Erika Janik’s “Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine” surveys these alternative approaches, which, she notes, seem less outlandish in the context of the “heroic” remedies (so called for their severity) of the era, such as bloodletting, blistering and purgatives. Some of these alternative systems were indigenous to America, but some were imported from Europe. Among the latter were homeopathy (which employed remedies whose active ingredients were diluted to infinitesimal concentration), hydropathy (which emphasized water applied internally and externally), phrenology (which purported to discern a patient’s intelligence and character from the shape of his skull) and the hypnotic manipulation of “animal magnetism” known as mesmerism.

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The author makes a good case that any sensible person in the 19th century could have taken these alternative systems seriously. The therapeutic options of ordinary doctors were pretty limited, even if it is a caricature to assume that practitioners routinely subjected their patients to harsh heroic remedies no matter the symptoms. For most conditions, a patient might be at least as well off with a herbalist, hydropathist or homoeopathist. I am less convinced by her argument that these systems contain the “strange origins” of modern medicine. Sometimes the connection seems to be the emphasis on temperance, diet and other features of modern “lifestyle” medicine that were often emphasized by alternative healers but on which they hardly had a monopoly. Ms. Janik’s more specific claim that “hydropathy’s advocacy of good hygiene . . . provided the foundation for public health campaigns” is fanciful to say the least.

Perhaps the most significant feature in all histories of healing—regular or not—is the fact that most illness is self-limited. We generally get better no matter what is done to or for us. When I was in medical school half a century ago, I was taught that if you treat a cold, it will get better in a week. If you don’t treat it, it will last seven days. I hope they teach this still.

—Dr. Bynum is professor emeritus of
the history of medicine at University College, London.