Snake oil salesman Archived Message
Posted by Mary on June 5, 2020, 9:50 am, in reply to "One of the Lancet co-authors is the chief executive of Surgisphere"
'Snake oil is a euphemism for deceptive marketing and health care fraud. It refers to the petroleum-based mineral oil or "snake oil" that used to be sold as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physiological problems. Many 19th-century United States and 18th-century European entrepreneurs advertised and sold mineral oil (often mixed with various active and inactive household herbs, spices, and compounds, but containing no snake-derived substances whatsoever) as "snake oil liniment", making frivolous claims about its efficacy as a panacea. William Rockefeller Sr. sold "rock oil" as a cancer cure without the reference to snakes. Patent medicines that claimed to be a panacea were extremely common from the 18th century until the 20th, 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.' A decade or two ago my late mother was being given 'gold injections' by a medic for her disabling rheumatoid arthritis. There was absolutely no improvement.
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