the meaning of quack

Interesting reading..
Origin of Quack

"""
Quackery
A physician of the time by the name of Paracelsus seems to be the first physician "lucky" enough to be labeled a quack. He made a salve that had a bit of mercury in it. He massaged it into a patient's syphilitic rash, and the rash went away. Other physicians of the time claimed that the rash did not go away but went further and deeper into the patient’s body. They called him a quack for using quacksalber.

Since there were no spelling rules or conventions established at this time in history, there were a variety of spellings for quacksalber, quecksilber and quacksalver being just two more. Some dictionaries tell us that a quack was someone who applied a salve (from quacksalver) and boasted (quacked) about it. This is the sort of thing that happens when high school dropouts write dictionaries. """


but i loved this paragraph...

""""Being called a quack was actually not all that bad in the sixteenth century (fifteen hundreds). It was much better than being called a witch. If a physician cured someone who was obviously supposed to die, he could be called a witch and then burned. If a physician was called in to cure a dying member of the archdiocese, a priest or a bishop, and failed to do so, he too could be called a witch and get himself lit up like a candle. Quacks lived longer than witches, because, as we all know, witches are extremely flammable."""""


just an interesting tidbit of info i found and wanted to share :)