BEHIND THE "QUACKARY"

The Museum of Historical Medical Artifacts has a thoughtful collection of items that flush out the Quackary exhibit and make them unique to other online museums. In each description, the viewer is told what they are looking at in a clinical, detached way. Depicting the measurements of the item, describing it, reading the text if there are any, and stating that it is categorically quackery.  

For example, there is a Duplex Oxygenator with a description reading: a steel cylinder with two connectors attached to wires ending in contacts. Reading Duplex Oxygenator, cures diseases of oxygen, The Oxygenator Co., Buffalo, NY; Category: Quackery.  

But this does not explain to you what an oxygenator is, how it cures diseases of oxygen, or why it is quackery.  

Oxygenators were made by EK. L. Moses. They were hallmarks of gas pipe therapy, where the device would supposedly cause the human body to absorb oxygen from the air after the cylinder was placed into cold water. Moses claimed that high levels of oxygen in the blood could cure virtually every disease, convincing doctors who were using it in place of regular treatment.  

45,451 Oxypathors had been sold before Oxygenator Co. was charged with fraud. After the trial, a fraud order was issued against the Oxygenator company and Moses was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but no refunds were issued.  

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Without this background, we would not know the source of the quackery, or how victims did not receive justice afterward. 

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Sources: 

Gabowski, E. (2023). Philately and International Mail Order Fraud, Elvard L. Moses and the Oxypathor Company. The American Philatelist, (February 2023). https://stamps.org/news/c/collecting-insights/cat/postal-history/post/philately-and-international-mail-order-fraud-elvard-l-moses-and-the-oxypathor-company 

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Holdbrook, S. H. (1959). Duplex Oxygenator. Retrieved from http://www.mohma.org/instruments/category/quackery/duplex_oxygenator_2/.  

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Propaganda Department of the Journal of the American Medical Association (1923). Mechanical Nostrums and Quackery of the Drugless Type. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, 22–37. https://quackwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2020/12/mechanical_nostrums_and_quackery.pdf