I find the following more entertaining and likely valid:

Looking into the history of amalgams is most illuminating. In the 1830s there were two groups of dentists in America: those favoring mercury amalgams and those opposed to it. Those not in favor of amalgam -- the American Society of Dental Surgeons -- disliked amalgam's tendency to fracture teeth as it expanded in fillings. Nor were they happy with the idea of mercury's side effects, like insanity (Mad Hatter's Disease) and loss of motor function from nerve damage. (Bernard)

So the Society pledged never to use amalgam for fillings. (Lorscheider) The Society actually referred to those dentists who used mercury as 'quacks' -- short for quackenslaver, the German word for mercury. And that is the origin of this derogatory medical term. (Hansen, p. 40) The name of that other group, the one using mercury? The American Dental Association.

Found here.

Just a confirmation that I too have read and seen stories the same and similar to what John posted……..all the more reason to be aware of the need to be attuned to who’s definition is in play at any given instance; neither would it hurt to always have on hand a dictionary from the 1800s, such as Black's Law Dictionary.

.....but  ask yourself, if told that on Nov22 1963 that the Premier of Russia had been shot from a Moscow office building by a lowly capitalist sympathizer who himself was then liquidated by a patriotic Muscovite within 48 hours while surrounded by armed police…. I think it would pretty apparent to any free thinking person that a coup detat had just taken place…………we’re through the looking glass here people….white is black… and black is white…….

 EDIT: PS - the history of what the present day readily accepts as a definition for "quackery" probably goes as far back, if not farther than, the story of Bechamp versus Pasteur from the mid 1800s to early 1900s. There is plenty of history to be found wherein the former is shown to be the true genius and the latter merely the ambitious and plagiarizng dunce who just so happened to have the backing of establishment, their open wallets and their hideosly open minds. There is a massive essay that deals with this topic, which itself contains numerous sublinks to various sections of the overall story on the medical racket. If one were to read or at least browse the information between the two sub-links Investigating Life's Mysteries and The War On Quacks, justification for the above assertion becomes evident.  To repeat, these two sublinks are just a few of the numerous embedded within the larger essay The Medical Racket  For clarification, the entire list of sublinks found within this essay are:

By Wade Frazier

Disclaimer

Timeline to 1491

Timeline from 1492

Introduction    

Masculine, Feminine and "Modern" Medicine

Lessons in Reversing Heart Disease

Early Western Medicine

The Beginnings of Today’s Medical Establishment

Science, Medicine and Money in the 19^th Century

Investigating Life’s Mysteries

A Paradigm Lost?

The Developing American Medical Racket

The Cancer Racket Begins

Royal Rife and Morris Fishbein

The “War on Quacks”

Béchamp's Professional Descendants

Pasteur’s Germ Theory, Vaccines and Alternate Paradigms

The March of the Lemmings

Why the System Works the Way it Does

My Early Experience with the Medical Racket

Modern American "Justice"

Are They Really That Blind?

Are We Really That Free?

My Personal Encounters with 714X

Footnotes

PPS - hoy vay!.... and Lapis has already debunked this (blush)

http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=28&i=11