Also 6–7 quack(e)-, 7 quaksaluer. [a. early mod.Du. (16th c.) quacksalver (Kilian; mod.Du. kwakzalver), whence also G. quacksalber, Sw. qvacksalfvare: the second element is f. salf, zalf salve, ointment, and the first is commonly regarded as the stem of quacken (mod.Du. kwakken) to quack.
On this view a quacksalver is one who ‘quacks’ or boasts about the virtues of his salves; it has however been suggested that quack- or kwak- may mean ‘to work in a feeble bungling fashion’ (Franck).]
1. An ignorant person who pretends to a knowledge of medicine or of wonderful remedies: = QUACK sb.1 1.
Very common in 17th c.; in later times largely superseded by the abbreviation QUACK sb.1
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 53. A quacke-saluers Budget of filthy receites.
1605. B. Jonson, Volpone, II. ii. They are quack-saluers, Fellowes, that liue by senting oyles, and drugs.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1074. One accidental rash cure of a disease … makes a Quacksalver a great Physician.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), IV. 87. Come you Quack-salvers that do kill Sometimes a Patient by your Skill.
1856. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), II. VIII. ix. 98. What a gulf between the high personage our romance imagines and … that shuffling quacksalver which our matter-of-fact research discovers.
attrib. a. 1670. Hacket, Cent. Serm. (1675), 544. St. Peter had no such Quacksalver tricks in Divinity.
2. transf. = QUACK 2.
1611. W. Baker, Panegyr. Verses, in Coryat’s Crudities. The Anatomie dissection or cutting up of that great Quacksalver of words Mr. Thomas Coryate our British Mercurie.
1889. Swinburne, Stud. B. Jonson, 43. Brother Zeal-of-the-land is no vulgar impostor, no mere religious quacksalver.
Hence Quacksalverism, † -salvery, quackery.
1617. Minsheu, Ductor, Quacksaluerie.
1864. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., IV. 392. Sublime quacksalverism.
