Bad Medicine: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Distance Healing to Vitamin O.CHRISTOPHER WANJEK The idea of bloodletting Bloodletting A period of severe investing losses.Notes: The term comes from a medieval medical practice that involved bleeding out a patient. It was believed that afflictions resided in the blood and could be eliminated by draining away a large quantity. Thankfully, this practice has been abandoned. See also: Bear Market, Capitulation, Correction, Dead Cat Bounce, Falling Knife, Flight to Quality, Panic Selling, Recession, Torpedo Stock or shock therapy shock therapyn. as cures for what ails you seems antiquated and foolhardy. However, Wanjek believes that many people believe in and practice equally bogus medical treatments today. He debunks many common medical myths and misconceptions, including touch therapy, magnet therapy mag·net therapy (m Any of various treatments for mental disorders, such as major depression or schizophrenia, in which a convulsion or brief coma is induced by administering a drug or passing an electric current through the brain. Also called shock treatment.  g n t)n. , and the use of shark cartilage to ward off cancer. He also explores the accuracy of medical news on television, our obsessive war on bacteria, and the quest to cure baldness male pattern baldness see androgenetic alopecia, under alopecia. bald·ness (bôld ns)n. . Wiley, 2003, 280 p., b&w photos/Illus., paperback, $15.95.
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