Quackery
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Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends,
WPA poster, 1936–38
William Hogarth's The Inspection, the third canvas in his Marriage à-la-mode (The Visit to the Quack Doctor)
Pietro Longhi's The Charlatan (1757)
The Surgeon by Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1555)
Snake oil
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"Snake oil" is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, snake oil salesman is a common label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general
Quackery
…skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term quack is a clipped form of the archaic term quacksalver, derived from Dutch: kwakzalver a "hawker of salve" or rather somebody who…
Itinerant salesman in Rome draped with snakes
A historical reenactor representing a traveling snake oil salesman from the United States in 2014.
A report of the 1916 decision of the United States District Court for Rhode Island, fining Clark Stanley $20 for "misbranding" its "Clark Stanley Snake Oil Liniment".