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In many forms of quackery, the approach adopted is the manikin model, for both diagnosis and healing. The basic (and of course utterly absurd) idea is that some easily accessible body part is somehow a literal map of all the internal organs of the body! This accessible part might be the soles of the feet, or the palms of the hands, or even the iris of the eyes. But whatever it is, there are mystical, invisible supernatural connections between these readily accessible external features of the body, and everything inside the body! The two most commonly encountered forms of this kind of quackery are reflexology and iridology. Both began in the late 19th Century, but were extensively modified, simplified, or made more elaborate and complex by numerous practitioners throughout the 20th Century. Almost any medical quack who offers a variety of "healing modalities" will offer reflexology or iridology as options. Iridology, for obvious reasons, is used mainly for diagnosis, but reflexology offers not just diagnosis, but also healing--- by massaging, flexing or just touching various areas of the soles of the feet or palms of the hands. [Of course, since the Renaissance, examining the palms has also been standard method of fortune telling!] Like so many healing pseudosciences, these bizarre approaches are based on a completely imaginary magical worldview, and have no possible connection to any aspect of reality.
Experience teaches us that there is almost no claim so obviously absurd that it will not be taken seriously by about 1/3 of the population. Social media are chock full of completely insane claims, promoted as fact. And there is no real protection anywhere, other than your own sound judgement. Families which have sued quacks when a beloved relative died of an easily treatable ailment under care of the quack soon discovered that juries and judges almost never rule against quackery. Nor is there any protection from the government. In the US, beginning in the 1960s, some government agencies actually encouraged quackery as "alternative medicine," and various members of the US House and Senate managed to pass laws that, still on the books, protect quack remedies from being sued for false claims of health benefits, and even protect explicit forms of quackery from possible legal penalties. Several medical doctors have actually made a career of promoting various varieties of quackery, including Andrew Weil, Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra. In the 19th Century, when mainstream medicine still had strong elements of quackery, a number of medical doctors created their own forms of quackery, many of which persist today.
One of the most frequently
encountered forms
of quackery is nutritional quackery. The idea is that
(1) some foods are bad for your health, while others almost
guarantee good health; or, (2) no food can guarantee good
health, you need to take supplements! The sad fact,
however, is this: there is essentially no nutritional advice you
see in the media or on the internet that is in any way based on
any valid scientific research. Just in my lifetime, what
constitutes a "balanced, healthy diet" has completely
flipflopped about three times. Do you really need to drink an
impossible amount of water every day for good health? Do
you really need to take 10,000 steps a day for good
health? Are fatty foods "bad for you"? Is meat "bad
for you"? Are milk and eggs really dangerous to your
health? Etc., etc., etc. Just what kind of research
could possibly lead to such sweeping conclusions? Hint: a
standard research method is the so-called "food
diary." An organization to which I once
belonged, over the years, had several UT professors of nutrition
speak on "healthy diets." There was not the slightest
similarity between the "expert" advice on healthy, balanced
diets presented by any one professor versus that presented any
other. Each had his or her own specific,
idiosyncratic food choices to recommend. An
internationally famous example of this distressing phenomenon
was Adele
Davis. Common sense and moderation remain your best guide
to food choices; in general, try to ignore what you see on the
media. "If it tastes good, it's bad for you," is not a
reliable rule to follow.
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