Stanley presented himself as a cowboy who learned the powers of snake oil from Hopi Native Americans. Because Chinese water snakes were not found in the United States, Stanley used rattlesnake oil for his remedy. This is important because chemically, rattlesnakes do not have the same properties as Chinese water snakes. However, people at the time didn’t know this and the product sounded “exotic,” so surely it must be good.
“Stanley’s Snake Oil” became a legitimate empire with multiple production facilities. He gained additional attention at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition where he demonstrated the process of slicing a rattlesnake open and obtaining its oil. This did nothing to prove that the oil could even do anything medicinal, but it apparently left audiences impressed.
The Rattlesnake King would continue to peddle his snake oil for decades, but the government began to crack down on fake medicines like this. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 sought to eliminate fraudulent, mislabeled medicines like Stanley’s, and in 1916, Stanley’s Snake Oil was investigated. The investigation found that the product contained mineral oil, capsaicin, and turpentine.
It did not contain snake oil. Yes, the rattlesnake oil, which would have already been less effective than Chinese water snake oil, did not even contain the oil of any snakes of any nation. For this, Stanley was fined $20, which when adjusting for inflation is … yeah, that’s probably not sufficient punishment for marketing a fraudulent product.
Minor consolation to any of the people Stanley scammed over the years, at least he messed up so badly that his scam became the go-to idiom for similar scams.
Top Image: Foto-Rabe/Pixabay, Clark Stanley
Related: What The Heck, Voldemort’s Snake Was An Actual Woman?
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