MuseumOfQuackery.com This is the website for Bob McCoy World-renowned expert on Medical Quackery and Health Fraud, Please help us keep his principles alive.
Watch clips of Bob's past TV appearances in our:
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Sound like a carnival barker? A snake
oil salesman? A sideshow shill? |
Proprietor Bob McCoy was a veritable encyclopedia of the world's most inane and useless information about how to cure and/or comprehend what may ail or puzzle you. Author of Quack!: Tales of Medical Fraud from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, he's the guy pictured at left getting a "phrenology" reading on a "psycograph" (the machine measures the size of bumps on the head to determine his personality). The reading lets you know how you're doing on any of 35 character traits like intelligence, spirituality,suavity and chastity (all the bumps can be mapped -- above right).
Dubbed "The Quackery Hall of Fame" by the Copley Wire Service, the museum was the world's largest display of what the human mind has devised to cure itself without the benefit of either scientific method or common sense. It comprised the major collections on loan from The American Medical Association, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, The St. Louis Science Center, The Bakken Library, The National Council Against Health Fraud . |
A sampling of the amazingly useless gadgets that await you:
"A few volts of electricity appropriately applied
will put the sparks back into your love life!" , says McCoy
holding a machine that claimed to increase virility (and cure
prostate problems).
And
for the ladies ... a foot powered breast enlarger!!
Then we have soap that sudses off pounds. And if the soap doesn't work for you, how about a pair of weight reduction glasses ? Stand in front of lights flashing prismatic colors that "guarantee" health and well being. Expose yourself to the "magic" of radio waves ... yes, quackery is alive and well on the banks of the mighty Mississippi........
See for yourself, stop in and "take the cure!"
Learn the stories of
Great
American Quacks
Check
out our on-line
Device
Collection
See graphics from the
Ephemera
Collections
Watch Bob's TV appearances in our:
Video Vault
Buy Bob's Book:
Quack!: Tales of Medical Fraud from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
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Quack
Links
St. Anthony Main location closed as of January 2002.
Website moved to www.museumofquackery.com May 2007*
Page last modified 5/12/11
*formerly http://www.mtn.org/quack/
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