Reply to post: Snake oil?

Why does herbal cough syrup work so well? It may be full of morphine

publius

Snake oil?

It's important to remember the enormous history of herbal remedies Chinese practitioners have amassed over the millenia. Snake oil was the right medicine if it was made from the RIGHT snake. When that practice was transferred to the US of A 150 years ago, some unscrupulous people substituted local "snakes" for the real thing. Sham products have been around forever. "Caveat emptor" is just as important now as it was when the Romans coined the phrase at least two thousand years ago.

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