Cowboy Clark Stanley was down on his luck when he heard a tale that the Chinese (back in China) made a medicine or treatment from snakes. Immediately a get-rich-scheme formed in his mind.

At the 1893 Columbian Expedition in Chicago, Stanley came onstage with a live rattlesnake. He slit open the snake and dropped it into a pot of boiling water. Skimming off the fat from the surface, he told his eager audience that this was the “gen-u-ine” cure for what ailed them. People believed and his Snake Oil Liniment was sold for 24 years. 

So called “snake oil medicine” wasn’t only the “medicine of the west.” Similar schemes abounded in the 19th century. Wikipedia defines this as “any worthless concoction sold as medicine.” 

A bit published in the Georgia Gazette on 29 Jun 1774 proclaimed a “Miracle Medical Cure!”  Some 46 men signed their names as testimony that the stuff worked:

“We the under named subscriber of St. George’s and St. Matthew’s parishes, think it our duty to publish the following CURES perfected by Dr. John Patrick Dillon, for the good of the poor afflicted with the same, they they may know where they may expect remedy, as we have had, and affirm the same subscribing jointly that we have been CURED by him of: cancers of all kinds, fistulas, hysteric afflictions, rheumatisms, consumptions, fluxes, dysenteries, convulsions, epilepsies, apoplexies, hypochondrias, caries*, malignant ulcers, pleurisies and gravels**.” 

( Caries is tooth decay/cavities. Gravels is kidney stones.)

QUESTION: Are “snake oil” cures still being passed off today as worthwhile medicines? 

Did you realize that rhubarb is classified as a vegetable? 

And while we eat the stalks the leaves are quite toxic?

 Did you know that Washington State has 175 acres of rhubarb cultivation? Some 92% of those acres are in Pierce County. Sumner boasts to be the Rhubarb Capital of the World. 

Who remembers sitting on the back stoop eating a stalk of fresh rhubarb dipped in sugar or honey? I surely do, as do my children. 

The Chinese called rhubarb “the great yellow” and have used it for medicinal purposes for nearly 2000 years. Yes, this hardy plant has been around for a long time. Bet you have a patch growing in a corner of your yard.

Rhubarb was used medicinally as a laxative. Back in the day, purging one’s system was a common component of many treatments…. riding the body of ill humors it was thought.

Rhubarb was harvested in Scotland in 1786 and came to America in the 1820s through New England. Rhubarb grows best where there is a few months of cold weather. 

Whether your favorite is rhubarb sauce or rhubarb pie, my guess is that rhubarb has a love-hate relationship with most people.

There are dozens of YouTube videos, and several websites, teaching how to grow, harvest, cook and prepare those delicious red stalks. 

During the long history of Egypt, many millions of people (and animals) were mummified. “Far rarer are mummy portraits…detailed paintings of the living, buried with their mummies when they died.” (Thanks to National Geographic Magazine bit by Daniel Stone and photos from Google.)

The portraits were mounted on bands of cloth used to wrap bodies (mummies). Some 1300 mummy portraits are known to exist and most have now been removed and placed in museums. 

Egyptians spent up to a year’s wages to arrange funeral ceremonies and goods, often including portraits. Such portraits reveal the melting pot of cultures living in Egypt between the 1st and 3rd centuries. This was when Roman culture predominated and this is reflected in the portraits. Some of these portraits are identified!

Imagine having an image of your ancestor’s face who lived 2000 years ago???

For more information, click to:

BritishMuseum.org/blog/depicting-dead-ancient-Egyptian-mummyportraits