I must admit to trying various miracle cures – not to heal myself of a deadly disease, but out of curiosity. After reading a book that claimed chromium picolinate would help me gain more muscle, I tried the expensive little pills, sold from under the counter at the health food store, just to see. Of course, I am not the only one to experiment with dubious products .

Quackery was first imported to North America from Europe in the early 1700s, and American marketers quickly caught on. With therapeutic bleeding and such, the standard medical practices of the time were often scary themselves, and, as always, people were on the lookout for miracles. Quacks have been successful partly because they have appealed to desperate people, but also because they pique our curiosity, and, sometimes, quackery is just plain fun.

Travelling medicine shows provided theater, music, and the sale of cure-all potions that would heal everything from arthritis to gout. Patent medicines (most of which did not hold patents at all) were often developed by people without any sort of medical background. In the 19th century, rattlesnake oil was purported to cure almost everything; the peddlers told grand stories of collecting snake oil at great risk and expense, and unwitting consumers purchased the bottles, which actually contained white gasoline or wintergreen oil. Other cure-alls from the 19th century included Kickapoo Indian Sagwa (supposedly a Native American remedy) and similar potions that gave a partial feeling of wellbeing due to their high alcohol content. And in 1882, the Seven Sisters Hair Tonic was sold by seven, longhaired sisters who sang and claimed that the tonic was the reason for their thick hair. After selling their miracle-cures, medicine road shows quickly skipped town before consumers realized that the potions were useless.

With advances in technology, new devices entered the marketplace, and the high-tech sounding names helped to trick people. Phrenology was a quack diagnostic procedure that had its heyday in the 1820s; it utilized an electrical hat, looking impressively high-tech to impress the not-so-technically-minded. Electrical belts, inhalers, brushes, and insoles (that contained magnets, not real electricity) were sold starting around the 1880s to control impotency, rheumatism, insomnia, melancholia, and an array of other complaints. Another odd device was a sealed vacuum-type hat that clamped onto the head and created a tight suction, supposedly to prevent or reverse balding by stimulating the scalp. Another treatment used electrical currents to "stimulate" the scalp in order to promote hair growth. Then there were eye massagers in the early 1900s, said to heal the eyes so that prescription lenses were no longer needed. In 1914, the Tricho machine, which was installed in beauty parlors, was created to do the opposite: it X-rayed women's faces to rid them of excess facial hair. Repeated treatments were recommended, which in turn caused larger problems than facial fuzz.

Who were these quacks of old? As well as being salespeople, quacks were often entertainers, providing variety shows and using the same style of speech as evangelical preachers, often quoting Biblical text as a part of their shows. Many had no medical experience at all. William Radam was a gardener who professed that his "Microbe Killer" could cure various health ailments; Harry M. Hoxey was a coal miner who successfully marketed his "cancer treatments" in the United States and Mexico from the 1920s.

But non-medical people weren't the only offenders – some real doctors (or those who had at least purchased "medical degrees") also carried out some outrageous procedures. Born in 1876, Dr. John Harvey Kellog believed that most health problems were a result of the stomach and bowel. In response, he developed expensive treatments to wash out the colon, which he followed with a yogurt enema. Likewise, in the 1920s, Doctor John R. Brinkley transplanted the glands from Toggenberg goats into men's testicles to restore virility. Patients claimed that the surgery helped them, and the operation was completed on an untold number of men. Following the tradition of past quacks, Brinkley bought a radio station and brought the medicine show to a new era – broadcasting to the entire country and hosting popular musicians to advertise his "medical" procedures. When he was finally shut down in the United States, he moved to Mexico, where he continued his publicity through radio and the mail.

Although the American Medical Association (AMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have forced a lot of quacks out of business, plenty are still hanging around on the internet and in private offices. And many people are still happy to buy into their claims. A recent article in the respected British newspaper The Guardian claimed that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took regular shots of vitamin B12 because she believed it would enhance her energy levels. Likewise, it reported that Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, had a "rebirthing experience" in the Mexican Riviera; Cherie also visited a "dowsing healer" who swung a crystal pendulum over her swollen ankles and fed her strawberry leaves grown in an electromagnetic field in his yard. So if the rich and relatively healthy fall for quack cures, how could those who are suffering from deadly or painful diseases resist? Quacks are banking on the fact that they won't.