Speaker:

Richard Foulds, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
  Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Biomedical Engineering
NJIT

Title:

QUACKS...
The rise of science-based medicine, surgery and biomedical engineering

Abstract:

Science-based medicine and medical technologies are relatively new phenomenon.  Prior to the 19th Century, physicians and surgeons propagated unproved knowledge with little regard for the truth.  Hospitals were places where one usually became sicker and medical care often fostered increased illness.  Yet, to the common person, health was as important as it is to us today.  The desire to be cured led to faith in methods of treatment that promised improvements, but rarely delivered the advertised benefits.  Until 100 years ago, quack doctors, quack medicines and quack theories were as common as sound medical treatment.

Since then physician-philosophers and surgeon-barbers have evolved into modern professional providers of care that is rooted in science.  Medical education has advanced from untested apprenticeships, where one learned from incompetents, and ill-conceived medical schooling, where Latin and Greek were favored over anatomy and physiology.  Herbal remedies and fake potions have been replaced by modern drugs, and useless or dangerous technologies have been replaced by safe and well engineered devices

Or, have they? Even today science, or perhaps half-science or half-truth, has been employed by modern quacks to give their ‘snake oil’ and magic remedies up-to-date sounding credibility. 

In this lecture, we will explore the realm of quack medicine, quack medical education and quack medical devices in light of emerging science.

Dr. Foulds is Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology and is descended from a long line of quack doctors and snake oil sellers.