Talk:Snake oil

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 September 2025 and 18 December 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Summermax17 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Aidan Hollenbach, Rleg3, GioJB.

— Assignment last updated by Rleg3 (talk) 20:39, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

The history section of this article makes no mention of Chinese laborers in the United States, or of Enhydris chinensis or other snakes traditionally used for snake oil in China. Instead, it strongly implies that viper oil in 18th-century Europe is the original inspiration for 20th century United States snake oil liniments (whether they contained actual oil from snakes or not).

The article also currently contains no discussion of the difference in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) content between "Chinese snake oil" and oil from American rattlesnakes.

Readers of this article are thus likely to mistakenly believe that 20th century United States snake oil liniments were inspired by some ineffective European viper oils.

Here are some other sources which can be used to revise the article:

https://lions-talk-science.org/2024/04/03/i-cant-believe-it-was-actually-snake-oil/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snake-oil-salesmen-knew-something/

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew-Spielman/publication/353417368_Elixirs_of_the_Past_Quackery_Claims_and_Cures_-_Snake_oil_and_Indian_liniment/links/60fb00422bf3553b29095f0f/Elixirs-of-the-Past-Quackery-Claims-and-Cures-Snake-oil-and-Indian-liniment.pdf

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1026931/pdf/westjmed00120-0094a.pdf

see also the information about snake oil on List of traditional Chinese medicines

BlakeALee (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2026 (UTC)