The Battle of Medical Books: Publishing Strategies and the Medical Market in the Dutch Republic (1650–1750)

Forms, Handbills and Affixed Posters

“…More surprising is the fact that placards by medical practitioners are singled out in the excise, given their relative absence from the newspaper advertisements. 35 Surviving examples of medical posters are also extremely rare: we have identified one extant placard by 'the surgeon and physician' J.M.P., a doctor who practised in Amsterdam around 1700.36 This was a rather lavish broadsheet, complete with an illustration that demonstrated the variety of services that the doctor could offer. This seems to have been a common theme of such placards: visual representations of quacks generally include an image of a board or poster replete with illustrative clues to the skills of the advertising practitioner.37 One can imagine that certain physicians would never resort to distributing printed placards, and leave such publicity strategies to their less-respected colleagues practising in the town or village square.…”