Katterfelto

Gustavus Katterfelto (ca. 1743-1799) was a species of professional that no longer exists — part quack physician, part magician, part legitimate scientific lecturer. In addition, he implied that his work had ties to the occult arts, and pointed to his black cat familiar to prove it. The Prussian conjurer is most reknowned for a four year stay in London (1780-84), where he augmented tricks with dice, cards, coins and glasses with a lecture on which he projected microscope slides on a screen, revealing squirming micro-organisms to the public. When a flu epidemic broke out, he blamed these evil “insects”, and, you know? For the time, that was really not a bad guess — certainly better than the opinions of the “legitimate” doctors who ran him out of business for treating flu patients!

To find out more about the variety artspast and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t missChain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.