A semiliterate village dweller might have been aware of a new discovery, but he or she was probably not sufficiently educated to distinguish fact from fiction. Charlatans could not have flourished without the support of a willing, naïve audience.
The extraordinary power of impostors is therefore only to be understood after a consideration of the minds and circumstances of their gullible victims, the crowds who sought them out, half convinced before a word was spoken.
If charlatans had not existed, villagers would have invented them.'
From 'Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show' Ann Anderson 2004.