William Buzaglo

Who was William Buzaglo?

William Buzaglo was an 18th-century self-proclaimed English inventor. He claimed to have invented a new plan of stoves to heat large public buildings, which was the first of his claims. He later practised medicine and claimed a cure for gout through regular muscular exercise alone. His method seems to have been something similar to modern physiotherapy or simple massage, but during his time he was generally considered a quack, mainly because of the "aboundingly" self-praising advertisements that he made for himself. His style of advertisement was humorously parodied by Captain Grose, an English draughtsman and lexicographer, with a caricature in a handbill titled "Patent Exercise, or Les Caprices de la Goutte". Buzaglo died in London in 1788.