The evolution of The Quack Doctor
How it started, how it nearly stopped, and how it's going
A few amateur historians bumbled about, sharing jokes, complimenting each other’s blog posts and conversing in an overegged version of Shakespearean English for amusing effect.
It was 2009, and Twitter was all just fields. I had written a novel and, like many another desperate writer, I grabbed the first contract that bobbed to the surface in the toilet bowl of my unpublished world. The tiny independent publisher with whom I signed was a one-person band, that person being a lovely, eccentric character but an utter stranger to either publishing experience or business acumen.
There were many cringeworthy moments in this journey towards literary obscurity. One of the publisher’s few marketing suggestions was for me to get my mum to visit bookshops and pre-order the novel, then fail to return for it. The pre-orders would, I was told, create some hype and the abandoned copies would end up on the shelves to tempt in passing readers.
Oh dear. Such toe-curlery was not my style and I couldn’t bring myself to mention the scheme to my mum. Long before the book came out, I had a feeling it would not be troubling the bestseller lists.
Being a published writer wasn’t all one big embarrassment, though. It did lead to some fun opportunities – I took part in events, made contacts, got some positive reviews (and one bizarre poison pen letter) and even sold a few copies. The difficult second novel – about freak shows and fraudsters in Victorian London – never saw the light of day, so I decided to start a blog instead.
I launched The Quack Doctor to share my fascination with the history of medical advertising and the dubious characters who took advantage of the lack of regulation around their wild claims. It did well, and led to the commissioning of two non-fiction books – although because I procrastinated and then rushed them, I’ve always felt they were not as good as they might have been. While reticently attempting to do the required self-promotion, I spent a lot of time on Twitter, meeting people who became real-life friends. The gentle history chat and in-jokes (often interrupted by the Fail Whale) gave a sense of being part of a community.
As the years went by, however, I had less and less to contribute. I started to feel that my blog posts were repetitive, that my lack of a PhD disqualified me from writing history, and that for all my efforts to share my love for patent medicines and highlight the reasons why our ancestors bought and sold them, people still assumed I was just poking fun at the past. The phrase ‘Nope. Not quackery at all,’ greeted attempts to stray from my niche, and I can’t even count the number of times people have trotted out the cliché that ‘we shouldn’t sneer because future generations will look back at us and laugh!’ I drifted away from Twitter and eventually left altogether, which turned out to be a good decision - I gather it’s now just a load a grifters ‘hilariously’ calling each other cockwombles.
Fourteen years after the launch of my first book, I’m at peace with the fact that not everybody has to like or understand everything. I want to carry on learning and writing about the history of medicine, and I’m sure I can find others who would like to come along and share the adventure. That’s why I have started this Substack as a companion to The Quack Doctor website. It won’t just cover patent remedies but also the wider topics of health, disease, death, crime, macabre happenings … wherever each historical rabbit hole leads me. It’s also a place to highlight the fascinating museums, books, and events that educate and inspire the public – so if you have something that deserves a mention, let me know at thequackdoctor@substack.com.
The website will still be there, and I plan gradually to turn it into a more formal encyclopaedia of patent medicine – a research resource that brings together the available information and public domain images of each brand. Here on Substack is where you’ll find a personal tone, a broader range of topics and, once I’ve got settled in, a podcast.
So that’s enough background - the first proper newsletter will be out on Friday 1 September with a look at that perennial health helper, the medicinal leech. A huge thank you for reading and supporting me!