Why Go to a Quack?

Most doctors scoff when patients turn to quacks or unorthodox practitioners. Instead of scoffing, Dr. Beatrix Cobb, research psychologist at Houston's M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, determined to find out why patients do it. The people she questioned, reports Dr. Cobb in the current Psychiatric Bulletin, divided roughly into four groups:

1) Miracle seekers. Example: a Negro woman with cancer of the breast who covered herself with a "prayer cloth" each day for six months before seeking medical care. Now near death, she "believes that the failure of the prayer cloth was due to her sins." 2) The uninformed. One businessman did not know the difference between an M.D. and other self-styled "doctors."

3) The restless. Example: a man of 53 became impatient during a two-week stint of laboratory analysis, went to a quack who gave him "treatment" within the hour. "I got 'antsy.' You know, when you've got cancer, every minute counts."

4) The graspers at straws--those whom the doctors have told, "We have done all we can." But "for their own peace of mind, [many patients] must continue to try to do something about it."

Quacks attract patients by "kindness, consideration, and recognition of the patient as a person." They give the appearance of explaining things to the patient in understandable English. "The quack ties the patient to him through the bonds of grateful appreciation . . . The cancer patient seeks not only adequate medical care, but sympathetic emotional support."

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