"The foolmaster who fooled them"

Throughout the nineteenth century, physicians assumed the major task of analyzing and warning against quackery and unorthodoxy. The nature of this criticism is described, with key reliance on Worthington Hooker's Lessons from the History of Medical Delusions (1850). Most physicians viewed prospects for suppressing quackery more hopefully than Hooker did. Even he, however, would be shocked that delusion could persist so stubbornly despite advancing medical science, expanding education, and increasing regulation. Many factors help explain today's continuing-even burgeoning-quackery. These include a less cheerful view of both human nature and of the future, widespread skepticism about the fruits for science, impatience with governmental regulation, the vogue for self-help in health, increasing promotional sophistication on the part of unorthodox health vendors, and cooperation among various wings of unorthodoxy to maximize political pressure. Examples are given. Champions of alternative therapies predict their triumph over orthodox medical science in the contest being waged for the allegiance of the public.