- Joined
- Aug 6, 2016
(Public Domain)
The salesman promised a tonic that cured whatever ailed you and people came and bought the “miracle drug”. The market for this miracle cure had it’s beginnings during the California Gold Rush and exploded as Chinese immigrants moved into the West Coast bringing with them their culture of medicine and remedies including the Chinese water snake. The Chinese water snake had been used successfully for years in China to cure their aches and pains and there was a whole new market in their new country.
Unfortunately the Chinese water snake is not found on the west coast of the United States nor anywhere else in the country So how did snake oil originally sold as a “cure” for what ails you devolve into a whole new industry for shysters. It’s the old time honor tradition of greed. Once a lucrative product arrives on the scene people are ready, willing and able to get in on the action and towards the latter half of the 1800’s charlatans were making huge money by marketing whatever they could pass off as “snake oil”.
At first they began by boiling rattlesnakes and skimming off the oil that rose to the surface, although as the people came to buy, hucksters found other cheaper and easier ways to pass off the oil.
Then it was on to marketing.
Of course the first method to fool the people
put it in a pretty container
(Public Domain)
and then advertise it cures all
chronic pain, headaches,
"female complaints" and kidney trouble
Of course the first method to fool the people
put it in a pretty container
(Public Domain)
and then advertise it cures all
chronic pain, headaches,
"female complaints" and kidney trouble
On the front page of “The Daily Evening Tribune” on January 31, 1884 the following advertisement appeared for the Needham’s Red Clover Blossoms & Extracts. What did it claim to cure:
“cure cancer, rheumatism and all blood diseases. And dyspepsia, liver complaints, piles and kidney disease. If that wasn’t enough, it regulated the bowels and purified the complexion.” {2}
Products were flying off the shelves faster than one can say “rip-off”. An oil that was used by the Chinese for many years as a topical ointment for aches and pains was now marketed as the ultimate cure all. Of course there are no federal regulations on this new industry so producers could make any claim without ever going to clinical trials or having their product tested scientifically.
As the public became aware of the fraudulent snake oil they were purchasing the salesmen’s of the products were called “snake oil salesmen”, a trader in lies and sells products that are worthless and the king of snake oil salesman was Clark Stanley.
“The Rattlesnake King”
(Public Domain)
Not much is known about Clark Stanley. He claimed to have been born in Abilene, Texas in 1854 nearly twenty-seven years before it was established and some reported he was actually born Providence, Rhode Island.
His break came in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He was so successful that he opened production facilities in Beverly, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. Unfortunately for Stanley the government was not far behind his exploits. In 1906 the congress established the “Pure Food and Drug Act” and although it would take another ten years before his “medical cure-all” would be proven to contain nothing more than “mineral oil, a fatty compound thought to be from beef, capsaicin from chili peppers, and turpentine”. {4}
Snake oil salesmen were popular in America throughout the mid-to-late 1800’s. There is always someone around that is trying to get others to part with their hard earned money. Before the civil war usually they travelled around the country as one-man shows. Not only were they salesmen, they were entertainers and reporters as they spread news to neighboring towns. After the Civil War, snake oil salesmen grew into a larger entertainment industry. Sometimes they would include music and employed full casts in their productions. When the government began to regulate the “medicines” toward the early 20th century then this type of entertainment was forced into retirement or was it?
“Caveat emptor”
“Let the Buyer Beware”
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
“Let the Buyer Beware”
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Sources
1. https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/opinion/blogs/the-history-of-snake-oil/20067691.blog?firstPass=false
2. https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/...s/photos-from-the-vault/article120097873.html
3. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articl...or-how-i-came-to-buy-snake-oil-from-amazoncom
4. Chemistry, United States Bureau of (1917). Service and Regulatory Announcements. U.S. Government Printing Office.
5. https://www.georgeranch.org/blog/magic-elixir-snake-oil-salesmen-and-patent-medicine-of-the-late-1800s/