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The word “charlatan” comes from the French for “seller of medicines,” which may have originated from the Italian word for “to talk fast.” A quack is a seller of worthless medicines who uses false claims or pseudoscience. Charlatans have been around since the 17th century, with famous ones like Tabarin in Paris. In modern times, quackery can refer to alternative medicine practitioners or anyone claiming to be medical personnel. Infomercials have become a medium for quacks to sell their products, often making exaggerated claims and preying on vulnerable people.
Charlatan is an English loan from French, translating to a “seller of medicines.” Upon further investigation it appears that the French word may derive from an Italian term ciarla which means to talk fast or to chat. A quack in the English sense is not simply a seller of medicines, but a salesman of worthless medicines, who bases his claims about the efficacy of that medicine on false claims or pseudoscience. Synonyms for the word quack include snake oil salesman, charlatan, and charlatan.
Documents on the activity of a charlatan date back to the beginning of the 17th century. A particularly famous Parisian charlatan was Tabarin. He would stage elaborate plays, plays and pantomimes to peddle worthless medicines. Such shows functioned not only as a way for charlatans to sell their wares but also provided entertainment for the people. They would often draw crowds, and some people in the crowd might be “jilted,” working for the quack to make false claims about how miraculous a specific product was.
Charlatans in the New World were very common indeed. The peddlers, especially as the frontier expanded, moved from one settlement to another and with excellent speaking skills, sold various medicines for all cures. Some sales propositions were so credible that people who bought the product could experience improvement in symptoms due to the placebo effect. The good charlatans made their profits and left quickly, to avoid being thrown out of town for selling medicines that didn’t work.
In modern times the term quack takes on different connotations and refers to quack medicine in general. It can be a derogatory term aimed at alternative medicine practitioners, by those with a traditional Western approach to medicine. It can also refer to anyone who claims to be medical personnel. For example, the rise of quacks in the world of plastic surgery has been notable. People without real medical expertise may offer injections of Botox or other, usually not real medicine, at very low prices, to take advantage of those who cannot afford to see a licensed physician for such treatments.
The traditional charlatan, the good-talking salesman, has not entirely disappeared. Yet now the standard medium for such a person is commercials. It would be difficult to accurately assess the number of products sold by infomercials that make exaggerated claims and prey on the people most in need of help. The number of weight loss formulas, acne prevention, anti aging creams and a host of other products is hard to count.
Doctors may occasionally endorse these products, but more often the products are presented as effective by people who look like doctors, perhaps people wearing lab coats. The hour-long programs are dedicated to the latest panacea and appear to be based on legitimate science. It can be difficult to read the fine print on such advertisements, such as those for weight loss products that work “when combined with diet and exercise.” The rise of infomercials for medical products has turned quackery into an industry, with many quackery being excellent at acting and ready to sell the next useless product.
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