author

Addison Darre Crabtre

A 19th-century physician with a sharp sense of humor, this writer turned the strange world of medicine into lively, skeptical entertainment. His best-known work pokes fun at quacks and medical frauds while still taking the subject seriously.

1 Audiobook

The Funny Side of Physic Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.

The Funny Side of Physic Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.

by Addison Darre Crabtre

About the author

Little is firmly documented about Addison Darre Crabtre, but reliable library and book-history sources identify him as a physician and the author of The Funny Side of Physic; Or, the Mysteries of Medicine. The book was published in the 1870s and presents medicine as both a serious profession and a field crowded with humbugs, impostors, and fashionable cures.

A music reference source also describes him as a physician and songwriter, and gives his birthplace as Hancock, Maine. That combination fits the tone of his writing: lively, curious, and eager to entertain while exposing fraud and bad practice.

Today, Crabtre is remembered mainly for The Funny Side of Physic, a work that blends anecdote, satire, and medical commentary. It offers modern listeners a revealing glimpse of how people in the 19th century argued over expertise, trust, and health.