Big Books of 2026
Genres > Pseudoscience

Quackery

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, 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, from Dutch: kwakzalver a "hawker of salve". In the Middle Ages the term quack meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares on the market shouting in a loud voice.

Common elements of genera ...more

Quackery Books

The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Human Potential
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
Healing, Hype or Harm?: A Critical Analysis of Complementary or Alternative Medicine (Societas)
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
The Cure for Everything: Untangling Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness
Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
Zenarchy
Of Certain Strange Phenomena Appearing in the Contents of Books
Gladio, Nato's Dagger at the Heart of Europe: The Pentagon-Nazi-Mafia Terror Axis
The Art & Science of Ernst Haeckel
Occult Features of Anarchism: With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples (Kairos)
William S. Burroughs, Throbbing Gristle, Brion Gysin
Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults
Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact
Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures
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Lists

Caution by Heinz KohlerGet Well Soon by Jennifer WrightDeconstructing the Fitness Industrial Complex by Justice Roe WilliamsThe Woman Who Fooled the World by Beau DonellyDo You Believe in Magic? by Paul A. Offit
Anti-Wellness & Diet Culture
49 books — 3 voters
The Divine and the Demonic by Graham DwyerDrug-Induced Dementia by Grace E. JacksonHuman Longevity, Its Facts and Its Fictions Including an Inqu... by William John ThomsMilk by Robert CohenThe R.E.P. Book by Anonymous
Rx: Trickle Down
99 books — 2 voters

Bedouin Ethnobotany by James P. MandavilleFranciscans and the Elixir of Life by Zachary A. MatusThe Toad in Magic, Sorcery and Midwifery by Ernst HentgesThe Effects of Inbreeding on Japanese Children by William J. SchullDying Scientifically by Edward Berdoe
•Medical The Poetical
100 books — 2 voters
Melanie's Marvelous Measles by Stephanie MessengerThe Great Bird Flu Hoax by Joseph MercolaThe God Delusion by Richard DawkinsThe Communist Manifesto by Karl MarxThe Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism by Steve Goreham
Pseudoscience & Bullshit
334 books — 21 voters

Quackery by Lydia KangWhat Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Your Lower Back by Bill YanceyThe Harangues, or speeches, of several celebrated quack-docto... by AnonymousBeing Done Good by Edward Burcham LentPink Pills for Pale People by F. William Saul
Quackaduceus
106 books — 3 voters
Fakes!? Hoaxes, Counterfeits and Deception in Early Modern Sc... by Marco BerettaMountebanks and Medicasters by Piero GambacciniBad Blood by John CarreyrouPain Killer by Barry MeierTalking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
•Uptown Suckers
171 books — 4 voters


Related Genres

Science
Health
Conspiracy Theories
Pseudoscience
Bad Science
Junk Science
Scieñce
Pseudomedicine
Sciençe

Quotes Tagged “Quackery”

Tim Minchin
“ You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? - Medicine. ...more ”
― Tim Minchin
110 likes

George Bernard Shaw
“ Well, I've known over thirty men who've found out how to cure consumption. Why do people go on dying of it, Colly? Devilment I suppose! ...more ”
― George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma
2 likes

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