Quackery

[[File:WPA quack poster.jpg|thumb|right|165px|1930s US Government poster.]]
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{{cquote|The president of a St. Louis medical college once said to a large graduating class: "Young men, don’t go to your work with timidity and doubts of your ability to succeed. Look and act your part as physicians, and when you have doubts concerning your power over disease remember this, [[Regression to the mean|ninety-five out of every hundred people who send for you would get well just the same if they never took a drop of your medicine]]." I have never mentioned this to a doctor who did not admit that it is perhaps true. If so, is there not enough in it alone to explain the apparent success of quacks?|||[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38929/38929-h/38929-h.htm Quacks and Grafters]}}
'''Quackery''' is a term for a medical treatment that, to put it politely, doesn't work.

==Lies and false hope==
[[File:Anas platyrhynchos - Mallard Duck 03.jpg|thumb|left|200px|When asked for her opinion, this victim of [[fun:duck woo|duck woo]] responded, "Quack."]]

Quackery involves giving [[false hope]] to those with incurable conditions such as arthritis, [[multiple sclerosis]], certain forms of [[cancer]], or to otherwise gullible patients, often charging exorbitant amounts of money for it. Rather a lot of what is politely dubbed "[[alternative medicine]]" is quackery, as is much of the [[vitamin supplement|vitamin]] and [[herbal supplement]] [[Big Placebo|business]]. Implicit in the word is that the quack's nostrum, whatever it may be, is pure [[snake oil]] and the quack him/herself is a [[deceit|liar]]/[[con artist]]/[[charlatan]], or a [[true believer]] in something that simply doesn't work.

Quacks, as the persecuted innocent victims of mainstream establishment [[conspiracy theory | conspiracies]], may set up their practices offshore to duck (har!) the more stringent laws governing medical practice in the developed world. Hence, some Americans head to [[Mexico]] for [[Laetrile]] in clinics just over the border, or travel to the [[Philippines]] for a Bio-Energizing Anti-Cancer Zapper Machine.

==Etymology==
[[File:F A Maulbertsch Quacksalber.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Franz Anton Maulbertsch's painting, ''Der Quacksalber'' (<1785). A barber-surgeon, progenitor of modern dentists and surgeons, is shown operating on the left of the platform.]]
"Quack" derives from the 17<sup>th</sup> century word "quacksalver", in turn from the Dutch word ''kwakzalver'' (hawker of salve). Both "quack" and "kwak" originate from the Middle Dutch ''quacken'' (to brag or boast). Quacksalvers would appear in town markets offering cure-alls in bottles to anyone gullible enough to part with their money. So it's nothing to do with ducks, much as we wanted it to be.

==See also==
*[[Alternative medicine]]
**[[Chiropractic|Chiroquacktic]]
**[[Acupuncture|Quackupuncture]]
*[[Dental woo]]
*[[Donald Trump]]
*[[Fad diet]]
*[[Quack Miranda Warning]]
*[[Fun:Quacktionary]]
*[[Reparative therapy]]
*[[Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij]] — the Dutch Association against Quackery
*[[Water woo]]

== External links ==
*[http://www.quackwatch.org QuackWatch]
*[http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles The Millenium Project]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120112062141/http://sci-ence.org/red-flags2 The Red Flags of Quackery v2]


[[Category:Medicine]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]
[[Category:Scams]]

Categories: Medicine, Pseudoscience, Scams