Common elements of general quackery include fraudulent diagnoses using fraudulent diagnostic tests, as well as untested or refuted treatments, especially for serious diseases such as cancer.
Unproven, usually ineffective, and sometimes dangerous medicines and treatments have been peddled throughout human history. Theatrical performances were sometimes given to enhance the credibility of purported medicines.
The evidence-based medicine community has criticized the infiltration of quackery into mainstream academic medicine, education, and publications, accusing institutions of "diverting research time, money, and other resources from more fruitful lines of investigation in order to pursue a theory that has no basis in biology."
The term psychiatry was first coined by the German physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808 and literally means the 'medical treatment of the soul' (psych- 'soul' from Ancient Greek psykhē 'soul'; -iatry 'medical treatment' from Gk. iātrikos 'medical' from iāsthai 'to heal').
