Quackery

Quackery is a derogatory term used to describe the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices.

Sourced

• I bought an unction of a mountebank,
  So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
  Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
  Collected from all simples that have virtue
  Under the moon, can save the thing from death
  That is but scratch'd withal.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act IV, scene 7, line 142.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 652.

• Void of all honor, avaricious, rash,
  The daring tribe compound their boasted trash—
  Tincture of syrup, lotion, drop, or pill;
  All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill.
  • George Crabbe, Borough, Letter VII, line 75.

• From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains,
  Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains;
  These first induce him the vile trash to try,
  Then lend his name, that other men may buy.
  • George Crabbe, Borough, Letter VII, line 124.

• Out, you impostors!
  Quack salving, cheating mountebanks! your skill
  Is to make sound men sick, and sick men kill.
  • Philip Massinger, Virgin-Martyr, Act IV, scene 1.

• In jalousie I rede eek thou hym bynde
  And thou shalt make him couche as doeth a quaille.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Clerke's Tale, line 13,541.

• The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
  Only the empty nests are left behind,
  And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Harvest Moon.