Word: snakes
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...Snake Slaughter. Though nostrums and quack cures have always been around, they got their big boost in the U.S., says Carson, from the Civil War. The men under arms learned to seek relief in an assortment of pain-killing potions, most of which contained opiates, alcohol or both. Such strong ingredients could kill pain, and that touch of veracity built credibility for a thousand other claims...
...external use against muscle aches and the "rheumatiz," there were liniments galore. Merchant's Gargling Oil, not to be gargled, was one. Like Pratt's Healing Ointment, it was "for Man and Beast." Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment was promoted by the slaughter of hundreds of rattlesnakes at the Chicago World's Fair, but contained no rattlesnake oil. "Used external only," it was for "rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica, lame back, lumbago, contracted muscles, frost bites, chill blains, bruises, and sore throat...
...later laws largely curbed the worst abuses of the snake-oil salesmen, but the "desire to take medicine" that Osier noted still dies hard. The biggest medicine-show extravaganza of all, says Author Carson, was staged in 1950 with Dixieland bands and Hollywood stars to promote a $1.25-a-bottle tonic that pulled in millions for a spellbinding Louisiana legislator named Dudley J. LeBlanc. The potion was called Hadacol, and it contained 12% alcohol. The Hadacol empire wound up in a tangle of bankruptcy proceedings...
Manhattan bike riders find that they can snake easily through the traffic snarls, making their way through narrow openings where not even a Volkswagen could pass. Some cyclists are frightened by their first experience of heavy traffic, but, says Allen Bragdon, a publishing executive who pedals to work with an attache case strapped to his bike, "it's really quite safe. Everyone thinks, 'Look at that fool on the bike. Let's stay away from him.' " Bicycling gives the riders a strong sense of independence. "You're a free agent," says Bragdon...
...Presence. As the letters show. Whitman was nagged by more than one man's fair share of family troubles. One brother was feebleminded, another alcoholic, another a syphilitic who died insane; a sister was married to an artist and blackmailer of whom Walt wrote as "a cringing crawling snake"; a sister-in-law was a streetwalker; his "loud, tight, crafty" carpenter father was no help at all. Only his sturdy Dutch mother, for all her complaints, parsimony and illiteracy ("Not being boss of your own shanty ain't the cheese," she wrote), gave aid and comfort...