Verity Hollowayâs nineteenth-century cousin Thomas Hollowayâs patent medicine empire was so ubiquitous, Charles Dickens commented that if youâd murdered someone with the name Holloway, youâd think their spirit had come back to torment you. Advertising as far away as the pyramids in Giza, it was said Hollowayâs Ointment could cure lesions on a wooden leg. Bottling leftover cooking grease in the kitchen of his parentsâ Cornish pub, Thomasâs dubious cure-alls made him one of the richest self-made men in England. Promising to save respectable Victorian invalids âFROM THE POINT OF DEATHâ (his capitals), the self-proclaimed âProfessorâ Holloway used his millions to build the enormous Gothic Holloway College and Holloway Sanatorium for the insane. But Thomas was a man of contradictions. To his contemporaries, he was simultaneously âthe greatest benefactor to ever liveâ and no better than a general who led millions to their deaths. Aware of the uselessness of his own products, he believed the placebo effect was well worth the subterfuge and never ridiculed his customers. A ruthless businessman, he was deeply in love with his wife and cared for the education of young women. The Mighty Healer charts Thomasâs rise and the realization of his worst fear â that rival company Beechams would one day take him over â plus the very Victorian squabbling over his fortune by his respectable and not-so-respectable relations. It draws on primary and secondary sources to ground Thomasâs life in the social issues of the day, including womenâs education, Victorian mental healthcare, contemporary accounts of debtorsâ gaols, and of course the patent medicine trade of the mid-Victorian period; the people who took the medicine, and those who fiercely opposed it.
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