James Harvey Young

James Harvey Young (September 8, 1915 – July 29, 2006) was social historian most well known as an expert on the history of medical frauds and quackery.

The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation (1961)

 * Some years later, I yielded completely to the impulse, persuaded that medical quackery has been—and is—an important theme in American social and intellectual history.
 * p. vii


 * Quackery is important because through it vast numbers of our people have sought to bolster or restore their health and because it affords insight into an anti-rational approach to one of the key problems of life.
 * p. vii