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The term “snake oil salesman” is often used to describe individuals who engage in deceptive marketing practices. Wild west characters like Clark Stanley advertised their snake oil as a wondrous cure-all remedy. But in 1916, the U.S. government’s Bureau of Chemistry tested the liniment, found it to be dramatically overpriced and of limited value, and Stanley was fined $20.
Yet that’s not the end of the story.
You Probably Use Snake Oil
Snake oil wasn’t entirely purposeless. While it’s true that it didn’t match the claims on the…
