The snake oil salesman is an icon of the Old West, but this episode traces the idea to 18th century Europe, where oil from viper fat was a common treatment for rheumatism, joint pain and skin disease. Patent medicines date to 1712, when Richard Stoughton received a patent for his elixir. In America the rattlesnake became a logo rather than an ingredient, and sellers used mineral oil mixed with herbs, spices and roots. William Rockefeller Sr. sold supposed cancer cures door to door, and after the Civil War traveling medicine shows with up to 20 performers drew crowds before the pitch, often for elixirs laced with cocaine, opium and alcohol.

The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act changed the rules. In 1916 the Bureau of Chemistry analyzed Clark Stanley’s snake oil liniment and found no snake at all: mineral oil, about 1 percent beef tallow, capsaicin, turpentine and camphor. In US District Court in Rhode Island, Stanley pleaded nolo contendere and was fined $20. The episode then follows the trope into Westerns and cartoons and into modern supplements like Neuriva.

• Lydia Pinkham’s vegetable compound and its genuine relief for menstrual and menopause symptoms
• Dr. Guild’s Green Mountain Asthmatic Compound and its belladonna and stramonium
• The shill in the crowd who throws down his crutches
• Betty Boop selling Jippo in the 1932 cartoon Betty Boop M.D.
• Neuriva’s 2023 class action settlement and the Shuanghuanglian buying panic early in COVID-19