Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal

25. In Search of "Snake Oil"

~ Chapter 25 "Snake oil"-the expression has come to be synonymous with a quack remedy. But questions about the origins ofthe term provide the basis for an interesting investigation. Although considered quintessentiallyAmerican , patent medicines actually originated in England. The recipient of the first royal patent for a medicinal compound is unknown, but the second was granted to Richard Stoughton's Elixir in 1712. By mid-eighteenth century, an incomplete list included 202"proprietary" medicinesthose protected by patent or registration. Relatively few ofthe ready-made medicines were actually patented-which required disclosure of their ingredients-but rather had their brand name registered. Nevertheless, the term patent medicine has become generic for all self-prescribed nostrums and cure-aIls. Shipments ofpatent medicines were halted bythe RevolutionaryWar, and American entrepreneurs took the opportunity to meet the demand. Post-war nationalism and cheaper prices of the nonimported medicines helped American vendors maintain their lead over English suppliers (Munsey 1970). Among the notable patent medicine men and women were Perry Davis, whose painkiller became famous in the 1849 cholera epidemic and was subsequently spread worldwide by missionaries who used it as a cure-all for heathen sufferers; Lydia E. Pinkham, whose portrait on her "Vegetable Compound;' first marketed in 1875, made her the most widely recognized American woman of her day; the Kilmer brothers, Andral and Jonas, who moved to Binghamton, New York, in 1879 and were soon selling Swamp Root kidney and liver medicine and other "family remedies" from a palatial eight-story building; the trio of "Doc" Healy, "Texas Charlie" Bigelow, and "Nevada Ned" Oliver, who In Search of "Snake Oil" originated the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company in 1881; and Mrs. Violet Blossom, who as "Lotus Blossom" ran a medicine show with her husband in the early 1900s and became known as "the queen of pitch doctors" (Holbrook 1959). Among the most fascinating peddlers were one-time preacher Fletcher Sutherland and his seven daughters, whose hair had a collective length ofthirty-seven feet. When the young ladies performed their vocal and instrumental concerts-at such venues as the 1881 Atlanta Exposition and, by 1884, Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth-Fletcher Sutherland shrewdly observed that the girls' long hair was a greater attraction than their musical ability. This led him to create the "Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair Grower," a concoction of alcohol, vegetable oils, and water. The fifth daughter, Naomi, married Henry Bailey, a circus employee, who expanded the family sideline into a business that grossed $90,000 the first year. By the time Naomi died unexpectedly in 1893, business was so good that to keep up appearances the remaining sisters hired a replacement. The hair-growing business thrived until 1907, then declined slowly over the next decade when the bobbed-hair fad nearly put an end to sales. Overall, their hair grower and related products brought in more than $2.75 million over a thirty-eight-year period, but the septet squandered it on an opulent lifestyle that included each having a personal maid to comb her luxuriant tresses (Lewis 1991). The medicine peddlers used a number oftricks and stunts. The larger traveling shows, employing advance men to herald their arrival, entered town with circuslike fanfare, typically with a band leading the procession ofwagons. Skits and other diversions were used to attract audiences, who eventually were treated to the "Lecture" (which, when medicine shows expanded into radio, became the commercial). Assistants who moved through the crowds were often garbed as Quakers to lend an air of moral respectability. Native Americans were frequently recruited to promote the notion of "natural" medicine, which was given names like Wright's Indian Vegetable Pills, Seminole Cough Balsam, and various Kickapoo cures (Holbrook 1959, 196-215; Munsey 1970). A major component of most tonics, "cures;' bitters, and other nostrums was alcohol. During the Temperance era, the patent medicines were often sipped-with a wink-"for medicinal purposes," leading the promoters of Old Dr. Kaufmann's Great Sulphur Bitters to advise the public: "Never Use Cheap Rum Drinks Which Are Called Medicine!' In165 ~ 166 /P Real-Life X-Files terestingly, the manufacturers never felt obliged to disclose the alcohol content of their product (Holbrook 1959, 159). The alcohol-as well as the placebo effect-explains why the nostrums often won testimonials from their purchasers, who felt better and so believed they had been helped rather than victimized. In time, worthless cure-alls came to...