Common Doubts
Is Mountebank College a real college?
Mountebank College is a work of satire, conducted as a mercantile concern. It holds no accreditation from any body, offers no instruction of any kind, and confers no degrees, certificates, or standing. It has held to this record since 1577. All public business of the College is conducted through the Campus Store. All other inquiries are directed to the Registrar.
Can I enroll?
The Campus Store serves the public without prejudice; no standing is required to purchase. Those who wish may be entered in the Matricula as Correspondents of the College, entitled to word of new goods, term openings, and other proceedings, and to whatever recognition Correspondents extend one another. Admittance to the College is by invitation, and invitations originate with the College.
What does Scientia Sanat Omnia mean?
"Knowledge cures all." The translation follows Lewis & Short's Latin dictionary of 1879, which the College considers recent.
Where is Bellwether House?
Bellwether House stands at No. 1 Balsam Crescent and has housed the College's operations, including the Registrar's office and the Correspondence Division. The House does not receive visitors. Owing to a persistent influx of unsolicited applications and research specimens of a hazardous or obscure character, post is no longer accepted at Balsam Crescent; mail is received at the College's Summer House, and correspondence is conducted at registrar@mountebankcollege.org.
Where do the College's holdings come from?
The collection is drawn entirely from the public domain: patent-medicine advertising, druggists' trade catalogs, natural history plates, almanacs, and other printed matter of the era the College considers its own. Where a source has never been digitized, the College commissions the digitization, and the scans enter the public record. The original claims are left exactly as printed. The remedies of the period divided broadly into preparations that did nothing and preparations that did harm, and their advertising did not distinguish between them. Neither does the College.
Does the College use artificial intelligence?
Every image in the collection is a real artifact from a real archive, reproduced from the original, and every word of it is transcribed by hand. The College's writings are the work of its proprietors. No image here is AI-generated, and none ever will be.
Do you offer wholesale or trade terms?
Trade terms on inquiry: registrar@mountebankcollege.org. The College looks favorably on bookshops, museum stores, and other institutions of good standing.
How do I contact the College for press or media?
The Registrar: registrar@mountebankcollege.org.
Is Mountebank College a real college?
Mountebank College is a work of satire, conducted as a mercantile concern. It holds no accreditation from any body, offers no instruction of any kind, and confers no degrees, certificates, or standing. It has held to this record since 1577. All public business of the College is conducted through the Campus Store. All other inquiries are directed to the Registrar.
Can I enroll?
The Campus Store serves the public without prejudice; no standing is required to purchase. Those who wish may be entered in the Matricula as Correspondents of the College, entitled to word of new goods, term openings, and other proceedings, and to whatever recognition Correspondents extend one another. Admittance to the College is by invitation, and invitations originate with the College.
What does Scientia Sanat Omnia mean?
"Knowledge cures all." The translation follows Lewis & Short's Latin dictionary of 1879, which the College considers recent.
Where is Bellwether House?
Bellwether House stands at No. 1 Balsam Crescent and has housed the College's operations, including the Registrar's office and the Correspondence Division. The House does not receive visitors. Owing to a persistent influx of unsolicited applications and research specimens of a hazardous or obscure character, post is no longer accepted at Balsam Crescent; mail is received at the College's Summer House, and correspondence is conducted at registrar@mountebankcollege.org.
Where do the College's holdings come from?
The collection is drawn entirely from the public domain: patent-medicine advertising, druggists' trade catalogs, natural history plates, almanacs, and other printed matter of the era the College considers its own. Where a source has never been digitized, the College commissions the digitization, and the scans enter the public record. The original claims are left exactly as printed. The remedies of the period divided broadly into preparations that did nothing and preparations that did harm, and their advertising did not distinguish between them. Neither does the College.
Does the College use artificial intelligence?
Every image in the collection is a real artifact from a real archive, reproduced from the original, and every word of it is transcribed by hand. The College's writings are the work of its proprietors. No image here is AI-generated, and none ever will be.
Do you offer wholesale or trade terms?
Trade terms on inquiry: registrar@mountebankcollege.org. The College looks favorably on bookshops, museum stores, and other institutions of good standing.
How do I contact the College for press or media?
The Registrar: registrar@mountebankcollege.org.
I will do't;
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratch'd withal; I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
— Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 7