Neatorama has featured many articles about patent...  ...has featured many articles about patent medicine, snake oil , quackery, and dangerous cure-alls from the past....

The patent medicines of yesteryear contained some...  ...dium chloride (salt).Read about 14 other kinds of snake oil -type cure-alls at mental_floss.

Zzyzx Road in San Bernardino County, California, is famous for its spelling and for an awful movie of the same name. Zzyzx Road is named after the community of Zzyzx, which was once Camp Soda and Soda Springs. But why th...

The following is an article from the book Uncle Jo...  ...All-Purpose Pain-Killer. Doctor Thomas' Electric Oil was guaranteed to cure everything from a toothach...  ...haracteristic: they contained opium. The Electric Oil was also laced with alcohol and chloroform. SL...  ...r a genuine kickapoo cure-all- pai...

We use the term " snake oil " for anything promoted as a cure-all that doesn't...  ...who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad used oil from the Chinese water snake to treat sore muscles, and it worked! A 2007 sto...  ...d Kunin made the connection between Chinese water *...

Snake Oils , Hangover Cures, and Other Questionable Medicine...  ...to stardom when they started selling a vegetable oil , alcohol, and water mixture marketed under the na...  ...were forced to leave her ashed in California. OIL RIGGING Snakes...

I'm a little late in posting this, but it's too awesome to pass: Shaun Usher's Letters of Note has a copy of a 1905 letter sent by Mark Twain to a patent medicine salesman who tried to sell bogus medicine. Twain was furi...