Clark Stanley stood before the crowd and held the burlap sack carefully away from his body.

It was the 1893 World's Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, and there were thousands upon thousands

of people wandering through the city enjoying the sights and sounds, but Clark Stanley had something

unique to offer. After opening the bag, he quickly reached inside and pulled out a live rattlesnake,

the crowd collectively gasped and then inched backward from the stage. Then, with all eyes watching

him, Stanley ran a sharp knife down the length of the snake's body and tossed it into a pot of

boiling water. A moment later, the shimmer of melted fat could be seen on the surface. It was the

key ingredient in a homemade remedy he called snake oil, but it wasn't his own invention. We have

hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants to thank for that. When they moved to America in the

second half of the 19th century, they brought numerous medicines with them, including one made from

the fat of the Chinese water snake. It was high in Omega 3 and they used it to treat muscle and

joint pain. But Stanley only borrowed the name, not the recipe. Sure, people bought his miracle

cure and they used it for all sorts of ailments. But Stanley's dirty little secret was that his

bottles of snake oil didn't have a single drop of actual snake oil in them. Just a lot of mineral

water, some red pepper, turpentine, and a touch of beef fat. Clark Stanley was far from the first

charlatan to pray on the needs of the sick and he certainly wouldn't be the last. But he gave us

the idiom we now use to classify all those frauds. Snake oil salesmen are as old as time and their

business model has always been incredibly simple to offer a false sense of hope to those in need for a

price. But that's where things get tricky, because some frauds do more than sell bottles of mineral

water plusibos. They fool dying people into thinking that a cure is just around the corner,

that despite all the closed doors a patient might have faced, they alone can offer a way out of

their pain and suffering. And in the process, they harm the people they serve. Some cures aren't just

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