"After seizing a shipment of Stanley's Snake Oil in 1917 [Medium blog posts in 2017], federal investigators found that it primarily contained mineral oil, a fat

"After seizing a shipment of Stanley's Snake Oil in 1917 [Medium blog posts in 2017], federal investigators found that it primarily contained mineral oil, a fatty oil believed to be beef fat, red pepper and turpentine. That's right — Stanley's [Medium's] signature product did not contain a drop of actual snake oil [novelty], and hundreds of consumers discovered they had been had." http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/26/215761377/a-history-of-snake-oil-salesmen http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/26/215761377/...