Quacks and Cash
The British Medical Journal is 150 years old this autumn and has witnessed in its time a kaleidoscope of changing attitudes towards medicines, their ethics and efficiency. Peter Bartrip looks at its campaign against patent medicines at the turn of the century and the ambiguities of attitudes in the medical profession it reveals.
In my youth, said the sage as he shook his grey locks,
I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment – one shilling the box –
Allow me to sell you a couple?
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
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