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.^[1][2][3]

Young was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois. From 1941 he worked as a Professor of history at Emory University.^[4]

His The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America (1967) was a scholarly volume that documented many of the medical frauds in the United States.^[5][6]

Publications

• The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation (1961)
• The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America (1967)
• American Self-Dosage Medicines: An Historical Perspective (1974)
• The Early Years of Federal Food and Drug Control (1982)
• Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989)
• American Health Quackery: Collected Essays of James Harvey Young (1992)