Meet the quack doctors who made history with false treatments and claims

False Doctors

Medicine has made immense progress over the past two centuries. But when medical knowledge was poorly developed, many charlatans thrived by offering ineffective and dangerous treatments.

Great Prestige

Often charismatic, these individuals managed to gain the favor of the powerful or the public, making a living with only their reputation and the false sense of safety they provided.

The Count of Saint-Germain

In the 18th century, the Count of Saint-Germain made a name for himself in the courts of Europe by alleging immortality. The man claimed to be several centuries old and said he possessed an eternal life elixir.

A Mysterious Figure

The aristocrat remains a mystery. He died in 1738, but two centuries later, media adventurer Richard Chanfray took his life after claiming to be the Count of Saint-Germain.

John Taylor

In the 18th century, the doctor John Taylor claimed he could restore sight to the blind. To instill trust in his patients, he claimed that the Pope at the time was one of them.

Bach and Handel

In the 1750s, the famed composers Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel both lost their sight in some capacity and were said to have been treated by Taylor. Unfortunately, both also died shortly after procedures by Taylor accoridng to Wikipedia.

Franz Anton Mesmer

Born in 1734, the German doctor Franz Anton Mesmer said he discovered a new fluid in the body and performed treatment by manipulating it with “animal magnetism,” an energy flowing from things and beings.

From Belief to Reality

Mesmer became so popular that he had to organize massive group therapies. However, a 1784 report concluded that patients only felt the effects of the treatment when they were aware it was happening, an early report of the placebo effect.

Rasputin

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a controversial and mysterious figure during the turbulent fall of the Russian monarchy. He entered the imperial court boasting healing skills before being assassinated in 1916.

A Clinical Coincidence

Rasputin gained the trust of the Russian Tsarina by apparently curing her son Alexis' hemophilia. It was a clinical coincidence: having chased away the doctors, he interrupted Alexis' aspirin treatments. At the time, the anticoagulant properties of aspirin were unknown.

Linda Hazzard: the doctor of hunger

Around the same time, in the United States, a practitioner without a medical degree, Linda Hazzard, developed a fasting method presented as the antidote to all bodily imbalances. She organized group fasts in her "sanatorium" in Washington.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A devastating method

Many patients did not survive the intense therapy. After a 1911 manslaughter conviction, Linda Hazzard died at 70 in 1938 after self-administering the therapeutic method.

Photo: Washington State Archives

John R. Brinkley: the doctor with goat glands

Even without a medical degree, John R. Brinkley became famous in the United States as the "goat-gland doctor." He made a fortune by transplanting goat testicles into men, claiming it cured impotence.

Brinkley's fame and fall

Despite his discredit in the medical community, Brinkley managed hospitals for years and amassed fame. He still died bankrupt due to the vast number of lawsuits against his faulty procedures.

Andrew Wakefield: a false explanation for autism

Quacks were not reserved just for premodern times. Former medical researcher Andrew Wakefield became famous in 1998 after publishing a paper linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

Disavowed by his peers

No researcher was able to reproduce Wakefield's results. Then, an investigation by a local newspaper, the Sunday Times, revealed that he stood to make up to $43 million by selling detection kits after the study.