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How The Mighty Have Fallen

How The Mighty Have Fallen: Episode 4: Pills, Potions and Quackery

Episode 4

Episode 4: Pills, Potions and Quackery

Pills, Potions and Quackery

BBC Radio 4 - How The Mighty Have Fallen, Pills, Potions and Quackery

Dr Hilary Jones considers the history of obesity remedies.

Dr Hilary Jones considers the history of obesity remedies: deadly poisons, goats' ovaries, tapeworms and obesity cream. Among the pills and potions, could there be a miracle cure?

"How can a magic box of pills, syrup or vegetable juice, Eradicate at once those ills, Which years of luxury produce?" - Surgeon William Wadd in 1816, warning a gullible public of the dangers of obesity remedies.

The search for a wonder-drug to cure obesity has persisted for centuries. Over the ages, possible contenders have included such unlikely remedies as deadly poisons - mercury, arsenic and strychnine "as well as goats' ovaries, tobacco and perhaps even tape worms: 'Eat! Eat! Eat! And always stay thin!". 

In his final programme on the history of obesity, Dr Hilary Jones focuses on Pills, Potions and Quackery. 

In conversation with Professor David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum, he peruses a collection of weird and wonderful historic remedies, including the 'King of Corpulency Cures'. And he hears about the dire consequences of some of the more dangerous remedies. 

What can we learn from the past- will there ever be a miracle obesity cure?

Other contributors include pharmacist Dr Terry Maguire and leading obesity expert Professor Stephan Rossner, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Readings by Toby Longworth and Michael Fenton-Stevens


Producer: Susan Kenyon
A Ladbroke production for BBC Radio 4.

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