That Quacking Sound in Colonial America by Jim Cox Metallic
tractors were one instrument of choice for quack doctors. James
Gillray's satiric 1801 print show them at work, sparking the
patient's nose into flames and shocking his wig into flight.
-National Library of Medicine One warm afternoon during Colonial
Williamsburg's Publick Times a few years ago, when the town was
awash with guests and reenactors in eighteenth-century garb and
military uniforms, a gentleman and his lady ambled along a road
leading to Market Square. On the way they came upon Mistress
Moss, the "Herb Lady," who traveled with the 6th North Carolina
Regiment. The Herb Lady wore a voluminous, faded-purple shawl
dress, a little white bonnet, and tiny framed spectacles over
her twinkling green eyes. She sat on the ground by the side of a
tent, the tools of her trade spread out on a blanket in front of
her—a box containing a wicked looking knife and a carpenter's
back saw, pots and gourds filled with colored potions, bags of
dried leaves and