Daily MoS: The Redemption of Snake Oil

This is the Chinese Water Snake. Or at least that’s what google tells me, I can’t be entirely sure. And neither were some of the original hucksters in the 1800s, which is part of how the miracle of snake oil got such a bad rep.

Behold for science: snek.

That’s right. 2021 is a new year, and I’m here to clear the good name of snake oil. With SCIENCE! In our first installment of a Moment in Science, I present… the exoneration of snake oil.

In the mid-1800s, immigrants from China began arriving in California, and went on to find work as laborers as the gold rush died down. They commonly worked under conditions that could, at best, be described as underpaid and extortionary on the transcontinental railroad.

The Chinese workers brought some medical treatments from home with them. Oil extracted from the Chinese water snake successfully relieved some of their aches and pains. They were unaware at the time, but the water snake was high in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), an omega-3 fatty acid with legitimate anti-inflammatory properties. Today it’s prescribed to reduce triglyceride levels and has a slew of off-label uses. It’s unclear if the Chinese workers ever sold their tincture, but over a century before you could semi-illicitly import robaxin from Canada on Ebay? There was money to be made.

So how, I hear you think loudly from across the internet, did this treatment that had legitimate medicinal value get turned into the phrase we use to describe something with the validity of sex tips from Ben Shapiro?

Enter Clark Stanley. Clark Stanley was an asshole.

Instead of hunting for the correct source creature, any snake in the wild west would do. He made a fortune on his rattlesnake liniment because for the yokels arriving to make their fortune in the new west, what was the difference? Well, rattlesnake oil didn’t contain EPA or the high levels of omega-3s of the Chinese water snake. And furthermore, a chemical analysis of his product revealed no fucking rattlesnake oil (this seems to have set the precedent of ‘not having the fucking product on the label’ for the supplement industry). The marketing of this placebo rattlesnake oil paved the way for the image we have now of a douchewhistle snake oil salesman trying to sell you the “miracles” of garcinia cambogia or raspberry ketones or… whatever.

I’m probably too late to redeem snake oil, but let this be a lesson. The active ingredient in the original water snake oil is an actual prescription medication today. The reason we call something snake oil as a pejorative today is not because it was useless. It’s because snake oil was one of the first effective treatments that a conman used as a front to rip people off with a fake product. 

So next time you feel a need to call someone a snake oil salesman, remember the history that snake oil actually worked, and do what I do instead. Call them an asshole. 

I’m SciBabe, welcome to your daily Moment of Science.

Liked it? Learned something? Made you think? Take a second to support SciBabe on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!
About SciBabe 375 Articles
Yvette d'Entremont, aka SciBabe, is a chemist and writer living in North Hollywood with her roommate, their pack of dogs, and one SciKitten. She bakes a mean gluten free chocolate chip cookie and likes glitter more than is considered healthy for a woman past the age of seven.

10 Comments

  1. Here’s the strange thing: Clark Stanley’s “snake oil” contained capsaicin and turpentine. Both of them are used in effective liniments sold today. But Stanley’s Snake Oil probably contained just enough of either ingredient so you could smell them. If Stanley wouldn’t have been a cheap bastard, he would have put enough of these two ingredients (turpentine liniments are about two-thirds turpentine, and there’s quite a bit of capsaicin in a capsaicin liniment) in the product, it would have worked.

    • I have used all these ingredients and even get some from Mexico…I am a rancher and use them on myself as well as my horses! It’s ridiculous how silly folks are not knowing how easy it is to do it yourself 😉

  2. I’ve been telling people this about “snake oil” for years, since it was first documented (somewhere, I forget who did). Delighted to see a recent web page I can point people to about this in the future. Thanks.

  3. Interesting read, good to know the facts and history, and a good recommendation at the end “Call them an ass*”.

  4. Interestingly, during my lifetime, several pharmaceuticals have been derived from traditional Chinese herbal medicine.
    For malaria, the artemisinin class of antimalarial drugs and we still have drugs derived from herbal medicines in common usage today.
    The difference between a century and a half ago and now is, the lot of those drugs have been to be safe and effective by scientists.

    Nature, it might not have everything needed to cure you, but it does have a hell of a lot that’ll kill you. 😉
    And to the “if it’s natural, it can’t hurt you” crowd, I’ll happily introduce a few common cultivars of cassava, as well as the humble castor bean. Improperly prepared cassava will leave one with cyanide poisoning, the castor bean, ricin poisoning.
    I like some cassava based foods, I’ll not permit a castor bean plant on my property, no use for it and the chance of poisoning in pets and small children is too high.

  5. I absolutely love your new “MoS” series, and if it’s not new and I’ve just been a dunderheads and missed it, well, I still love it and I’m really happy that I finally found it 🙂 I have only read two of them so far, and one I really knew and the other was new to me. The whole thing is very worthwhile, and I can see it being a real pain I as*for you, but as much as you are willing to deal with it, I am happy to read it!

  6. these are just great! i am actually disappointed they only started this year because i just read through them all and it’s fan-frikin-tastic! look forward to future installments!

    • You know, there’s a lot more free space to work in my head now that it’s not “WAKE UP AND PANIC AT EXISTENTIAL TERROR” as it was every day during the Trump administration.

      I take less than half the anxiety meds I did before and I can wake up and focus on my work in a way I haven’t been able to in years. It’s surreal. I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me. It might sound silly, but when your job is focused on busting bullshit on the internet, it’s exponentially harder when the government is so focused on getting people to question if facts exist.

      It was a frustrating four years, and I’m glad it’s over. Time for better stories.

Join the discussion!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.