Wikipedia has this nice photo of a historical re-enactor dressed as an 1800’s patent medicine broker.
Clark Stanley, likely the most (in)famous snake oil peddler,
After the passage of the pure food and drug act in 1906 championed by Teddy Roosevelt, it was examined and found to have no medicinal value. He was fined and it was removed from the market. Stanley’s product didn’t even contain any snake! It was mineral oil and some other extracts.
In a culinary context, you care about taste and texture. For example, if your blueberry pie lost all the vitamins in the oven, nobody at the table will notice.
In a medicinal context, that approach won’t work. The patients can definitely tell if they’re still sick because the medicine isn’t working. That’s why temperature matters.
In a medical context, snake oil is bullshit anyways.
It’s literally snake oil. It’s in the name. LOL
Regardless, I was just entertaining the thought that what if you could take snake oil a bit more seriously. If you did it properly, who knows what kinds of compounds you could find in it. Probably something nasty and dangerous, but still…