"Snake oil" is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, snake oil salesman is a common label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution. The term comes from the "snake oil" that was sold as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physiological problems. Many 18th-century European and 19th-century United States entrepreneurs advertised and sold mineral oil (often mixed with various active and inactive household herbs, spices, drugs, and compounds, but containing no snake-derived substances whatsoever) as "snake oil liniment", making claims about its efficacy as a panacea. Patent medicines that claimed to be panaceas were extremely common from the 18th century until the 20th century, particularly among vendors masking addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, alcohol, and opium-based concoctions or elixirs, to be sold at medicine shows as medication or products promoting health.
History
Patent medicines originated in England, where a patent was granted to Richard Stoughton's elixir in 1712. There were no federal regulations in the United States concerning the safety and effectiveness of drugs until the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Thus, the widespread marketing and availability of dubiously advertised patent medicines without known properties or origin persisted in the US for a much greater number of years than in Europe.
In 18th-century Europe, especially in Britain, viper oil had been commonly recommended for many afflictions, including the ones for which oil from the rattlesnake (pit viper), a type of viper native to America, was subsequently favored to treat rheumatism and skin diseases. Though there are accounts of oil obtained from the fat of various vipers in the Western world, the claims of its effectiveness as a medicine have never been thoroughly examined, and its efficacy is unknown. It is also likely that much of the snake oil sold by Western entrepreneurs was illegitimate, and did not contain ingredients derived from any kind of snake. Snake oil in the United Kingdom and the United States probably contained modified mineral oil. William Rockefeller Sr., the father of John D. Rockefeller, peddled literal snake oil. At the turn of the 20th century, post American Civil War, patent medicine shows began traveling around America. Medicine shows combined a performance, advertisement, and store, all selling their own snake oils. Patent medicine shows would have upwards of 20 performers, often including black musicians, a doctor, comic sketches, advertisements for their wares, which often included narcotics or alcohol, and musical performances, performed by the black musicians, sometimes done in blackface. These medicine shows leaned on, and evoked, knowledge and iconography from many cultures, including medieval Europeans, Native Americans, African American, and Southern American cultures in order to persuade and delight audiences with their shows and products. In 20th-century America, snake oil became a common media trope, led in part by the 1915 case regarding Stanley's Snake Oil, created by Clark Stanley. He was found guilty of misbranding the solution he was selling, as well as falsely representing it as a cure for many maladies, such as sciatica, sore throat, and aches and pains. Patent medicines, and snake oils, were sold over the counter, mail delivered, or in traveling shows in the 20th century. Products such as menstrual cure-alls, benefited from this, given it afforded the customer privacy. Not all of snake oil, and snake oil salesmen, were placebo cure-alls, or medicines that had no benefits. Many of the medicines would parade large effects, the ability to cure any sort of ailment, but would use medicinal plants that did have a positive benefit on those taking it. Lydia Pinkham sold a vegetable compound that was supposed to cure many serious illnesses, but it was taken by women for menstrual cramps and various menopause symptoms. Alcohol, which was often a key ingredient in snake oils, allowed for the preservation of extracts, and acted as a solvent for the medicines within. However, others included toxic plants, such as Dr. Guild's Green Mountain Asthmatic Component, which had belladonna and stramonium in it.
The creation of the Food and Drug Administration in the 1930s, and the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, is largely credited with the downfall of the snake oil salesman, and patent medicine industries in the United States. The Pure Food and Drug act "prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation’s first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)".
Media A common trope in Western films, selling snake oil is portrayed as a confidence trick: a traveling salesman purports to be a doctor (with false credentials), selling fake medicines with boisterous marketing hype, and supported by pseudo-scientific evidence. To increase sales, an accomplice in the crowd (a shill or a "toadie") will often attest to the value of the product in an effort to provoke buying enthusiasm. The "doctor" will leave town before his customers realize they have been cheated. This trope is associated with the American Old West. However, the famous judgment that sparked the most controversy happened in 1916, when Stanley's Snake Oil was discovered to contain no actual snake oil, creating the notion that bottles of snake oil (and their salesmen) were essentially a fraud. That case took place in Rhode Island, and involved snake oil being shipped to Massachusetts, far away from and substantially later than the Old West. In Outlaw Women, a character named Uncle Barney runs a medicine show, bringing it to Las Mujeres, where he becomes a bartender, still selling his patent medicine from the bar. In animation, snake oil of all kinds can be seen being bought by characters throughout history. Betty Boop becomes a Snake Oil Salesman in Betty Boop, M.D., selling "Jippo", which claims to flatten feet, make men young again, removes teeth, stops breathing, and grows tonsils. It also showcases the performance aspect of these patent medicine shows, with a clown performing contortionist tricks, as well as Betty Boop coming out to sing a song persuading people to buy "Jippo". "Jippo" is revealed to just be water from a fire hydrant.
From cure-all to quackery
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