Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: quackery

  • Bloodletting with leeches: More dangerous than meeting Dracula

    Seidumanova Sabrina Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan   Since time immemorial physicians have treated patients by removing various amounts of blood from the circulatory system. For this purpose they used objects that could cut the skin, such as sharpened pieces of wood, stones, teeth of wild animals, or even the feathers of birds. These tools changed over time,…

  • What’s old is new again: quackery in the age of the Internet

    Lawrence Jones Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States   Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) The term “quack” is generally used to describe promoters of treatments and devices that have no acknowledged beneficial medical use. The advent of improved medical care and technology during the latter half of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th century was…