Snake oil
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"Snake oil" is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, snake oil salesman is a common label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general
Itinerant salesman in Rome draped with snakes
A historical reenactor representing a traveling snake oil salesman from the United States in 2014.
A report of the 1916 decision of the United States District Court for Rhode Island, fining Clark Stanley $20 for "misbranding" its "Clark Stanley Snake Oil Liniment".
Quackery
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Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends,
Snake oil
…ideas, and activities such as worthless rhetoric in politics. By further extension, a snake oil salesman is commonly used in English to describe a quack, huckster, or charlatan. False health products described by medical experts as "snake oil" continue to be marketed during the 21st century, including…
WPA poster, 1936–38
William Hogarth's The Inspection, the third canvas in his Marriage à-la-mode (The Visit to the Quack Doctor)
Pietro Longhi's The Charlatan (1757)
The Surgeon by Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1555)