Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs by Wayne Bethard

Author:Wayne Bethard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461625742
Publisher: Roberts Rinehart

THE SNAKE OIL LEGACIES

The most popular images of frontier medicines were the snake oil preparations. Peddled at medicine shows from the backs of wagons, the “drummers” were well known to stretch their claims a bit. The “entrepreneur hawkers” of the day used any number of tricks to sell their products. Traveling in shows and employing men to herald their arrival, they entered townships with circuslike fanfare. Lectures, skits, marching bands, and assistants who moved among the crowd helped lend moral respectability to their deceptive presence. Indians were frequently recruited to promote the “natural philosophy” of the remedies. In actuality, most of the old formulas contained no real snake oil at all. Many if not all were mostly alcohol and vegetable bitters that were sold on the strength of testimonials and the frenzy of excitement created by the medicine show itself.

A famous cowboy named Clark Stanley sold a snake oil liniment he claimed contained the real thing. He reportedly got slaughtered snakes from his home back in Abilene, Texas, and processed the “juices” into the product he sold nationwide from his plant based in New England. But since the ingredients in medicines were not required by law to be placed on the label, there was no way a trusting consumer really knew what was in the remedies. Anything that could cure rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica, lame back, lumbago, sprains, toothache, frostbites, sore throats, and animal bites had to be a bargain at fifty cents a bottle. After all, Clark Stanley himself said this was the same recipe the Indians back home rendered from rattlesnakes and used to treat aching muscles and sore bones.

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