Outlandish or alternative cures

• A home medicine encyclopaedia of 1910 recommended cures that included electrical shocks, injection with animal hormones, and a range of harmful substances including cocaine, mercury, creosote and strychnine.
• Other alternative medical treatments included mesmerism (hypnotism), homeopathy (taking tiny doses of poisons), 'health reform' (a religious movement which recommended a healthy lifestyle - it was run by John Kellogg whose brother invented cornflakes) and Christian Science (which taught that disease only existed in the mind).
• Travelling 'quacks' sold patent medicines (such as Lily the Pink's medicinal compound).

Now try a Test Bite