Back in 1755, Samuel Johnson included the following definitions in his famous Dictionary:
QUACK
n.
A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand; a vain boastful pretender to physick; one who proclaims his own medical abilities in publick places; an artful tricking practitioner in physick.
a.
Falsely pretending, or falsely alleging, to cure diseases: as, a quack doctor; a quack medicine.
QUACKERY
n.
Mean or bad acts in physick; false pretensions to any art.
QUACKISH
a.
Boasting like a quack; trickish as a quack.
QUACKISM
n.
The practice of quackery.
QUACKSALVER
n.
One who brags of medicines or salves; a medicaster; a charlatan. The quacksalver was at first one who made, sold, or applied ointments or oils. Afterwards it denoted a kind of charlatan, a travelling quack.
How useful it would be to restore some of these words to our general vocabulary.
In particular, "Quacksalver" could be again be a convenient term for certain kinds of CAM practitioner...
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3 comments:
As in "the Prince of Wales is a quacksalver"? see http://www.duchyoriginals.com/detox_tincture.php
It appears to still be in use auf Deutsch, according to my Langenscheidt dictionary:
Quacksalber noun m quack
Quacksalberei noun f quackery
And in Swedish: "Kvacksalvare, Kvacksalveri" - The particular law concerning practicing, or pretending to practice, medicine without qualification is called "Kvacksalverilagen" (The Quacksalver Law"
Unfortunately, this law means that as long as the quacksalvers never claim to be practicing medicine, as such, they can not be held responsible. They will instead talk of "curative properties" etc.
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