For many centuries the Chinese used snake oil as a treatment for joint pain, arthritis and bursitis. They brought this folk remedy with them when they arrived in the US in the mid 1800's to build the Transcontinental Railroad. That was hard work you know. Aspirin, while having been invented, was not a readily available item at that time. When the Chinese workers offered the remedy to Westerners as a palliative it was likely perceived to be a "primitive" form of "quackery" by the medical experts of that time. Hence the origin of the derogatory meaning of the word "snake oil."

The funny thing about modern "snake oil," i.e. petrochemically-derived and patented synthetic chemicals - is that they often have considerably less value than a placebo and in certain cases may not even compare in therapeutic value to ACTUAL snake oil. Here are four studies on the potential medicinal value of sea snake and boa constrictor lipids for inflammation and infection......

We don't, of course, advocate consuming snake oil when other powerful, natural anti-inflammatory fats are readily available from less sentient sources: flaxseed oil, for instance. The point here is that when age-old invectives like "snake-oil" are hurled at those advocating natural approaches to healing by those who would claim synthetic chemicals are the only "real" medicine, the "insult" itself conceals a subconscious acknowledgement that practically all things produced by Nature have medicinal value.

Let's look closer at another example of purported "snake oil": the traditional practice among the Maori and Chinese of eating earthworms to settle an upset stomach. Long considered an obscene, disgusting, "folk medicine" practice, these 3 scientific studies tell a different story:

In the first two studies, earthworms are shown superior to Ranitidine as an anti-ulcer, gastroprotective agent. Ranitidine is a chemical which blocks the H2-histamine receptors in the parietal cells in the stomach that produce hydrochloric acid, and is sold under the trade name Zantac. Until Zantac lost its patent in 1997, global sales reached 1.6 billion dollars annually. And yet despite these blockbuster sales, its value as a "medicine" compares poorly to the consumption of creatures that live beneath our feet in the earth, and who also, incidentally, make possible all the food we consume through their indispensable role in producing fecund soil.

So which is the "snake-oil," the infatuated object of "quackery"? Synthetic chemicals excreted by a vast petrochemical-medical-industrial complex, and re-purposed and repackaged to the consumer as "medicines"? Or, natural substances and organisms traditionally used as food-medicines, sometimes for thousands of years before the advent of modern, scienticism and drug-driven medicine?

Just for the record, I won't be eating worms any time soon, as I normally identify stomach upset in my life with my dietary transgressions or excesses and/or stressful situations in my life, i.e. a byproduct of my choices. But given the choice between a chemical, with no biological or evolutionary precedent in my body and an earthworm or sip of actual snake oil, I will gladly choose the latter.

Be sure to check out the other 40 instances of research showing Science confirming Traditional Medicine from around the world.