Quacks are individuals who perform medical treatments or prescribe remedies without formal education or licenses. Quackery involves using unscientifically accepted methods to treat illnesses. Following quackery can be dangerous as the ill person may not receive real treatment and their condition could worsen or they could die. Traditional and alternative medicines refer to health practices using plants, animals, minerals, or spiritual therapies. While some have benefits, people should be wary of false health claims from quacks.

3. What is A Quack?
uack are people who
perform healing procedures
or prescribe remedies for
illnesses even without
formal education and
licenses.
Q

4. What is A Quackery?
uackery involves the use of
methods or remedies to
cure diseases that are not
scientifically accepted.
Q

5. Possible Effects of Quackery?
1. A person who is terribly ill almost always dies in the
hands of a quack.
2. A sick person who goes to a quack for treatment
instead of a doctor may only be prolonging his/her
illness.
3. Even if no actual healing has been done, the patient
gets well merely by his/her own faith, either in the
quack or in the remedies given. (Placebo effect)
4. Money wasted since a patient’s condition will not
improve under a quack.
5. The patient’s family may only get false hopes if the
quack assures them of the patient’s complete healing.

6. How to identify Medical Quacks
1. Some of them utilize advertisements to promote their
product.
2. Most of them perform their services in their homes.
3. Some claim to have secret formulas which cannot be
obtained from drugstores.
4. Some of them perform their services w/o regard for
sanitation.
5. Some utter vague prayers or incantations while they
are treating their patients.
6. Most of them use the same procedure or medicinal
formula for all kinds of illnesses.

7. The Usual Victims of Medical
Quackery
1. Suffer from serious ailment or diseases, like
cancer, heart problem, etc.
2. Are afraid of doctors or refuse to undergo
surgery although they have been advised to
do so by doctors.
3. Suffer from severe pains, and
4. Usually put high premium on vanity.

8. What is Health Fads?
consumer craze or
consumer myths
Refers to belief about health
that gain instant popularity:
stay on belief: then, die
down eventually.

9. Health Fads
1. Some supplementary food like unproven
herbal drinks or energy drinks that gives
extra strength and increase the body’s
resistance to diseases.
2. Organic or natural food is better than
regular food available in stores.
3. Wearing a copper bracelet can alleviate pain
and cure diseases.

10. Possible Effect of Following Health
Fads
1. These can lead to spending money on less
important or unnecessary products.
2. These can lead to wasteful spending on
usually overpriced specialty.
3. These can lead to spending so much on
worthless forms of therapies.
4. These can cause harm to the body.

11. Alternative/Traditional Medicine
WHO defined traditional medicine as
“medicine that refers to health practices,
approaches, knowledge and beliefs
incorporating plant, animal and mineral-based
medicines, spiritual therapies, manual
techniques and exercises, applied singularly or
in combination to treat, diagnose, and prevent
illnesses or maintain well-being.

12. Quackery
Agree or Disagree. Why?
An old saying,
"A robber demands your
money or your life; but, a
quack demands your money
and your life!"

13. Practitioners of Traditional
Medicine
Albularyo
Hilot

14. Practitioners of Traditional Medicine
Albularyo
• uses plants to cure illnesses.
contains
substances
Medicinal
plants or herbs
• Michael L. Tan – Term albularyo is misleading.
• Spanish-Filipino – “herbalist”
•Western countries – medicinal plants – small herbs
• Philippines – medicinal plants –herbs & forest tress

15. Hilot
Practitioners of Traditional Medicine
• assist in giving birth
• provides cure for sprains and muscle pains
• recognized including DOH.

16. Categories of Herbal Drugs
World Health Organization (WHO) categorizes
medicinal uses of herbal drugs as:
1. Those supported by clinical data.
2. Those described in official pharmacopoeias and
in traditional systems pd medicines.
3. Those described in folk medicine not yet
supported by experimental data or clinical data.

45. Importance of Traditional
Medicine
1. Medicinal plants are cheap alternatives to
expensive medicines, particularly for the
poor.
2. Traditional medicines is more-holistic
approach to treatment. It is said that “Western
medicine treats the diseases while traditional
medicine treats the person.”
3. The albularyo & hilot play, to come extent, the
role of doctors in rural areas.

46. The End