Quackery  

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Quackery is a derogatory term used to describe unscientific medical practices.

It is the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices. Random House Dictionary describes a "quack" as a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, or qualifications he or she does not possess; a charlatan".

The word "quack" derives from the archaic word "quacksalver", of Dutch origin (spelled kwakzalver in contemporary Dutch), literally meaning "hawker of salve". In the Middle Ages the word quack meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares on the market shouting in a loud voice.

"Health fraud" is often used as a synonym for quackery, but quackery's salient characteristic is its more aggressive promotion ("quacks quack!").

"Pseudo-medicine" is a term for treatments known to be ineffective, regardless of whether their advocates themselves believe in their effectiveness.

See also

Regulatory organizations

Anti-quackery organizations




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Quackery" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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