Medicine show

Medicine shows were touring acts (traveling by truck, horse, or wagon teams) that peddled "miracle cure" patent medicines and other products between various entertainments. They developed from European mountebank shows and were common in the United States in the nineteenth century, especially in the Old West (though some continued until World War II). Medicine shows usually promoted "miracle elixirs", sometimes referred to as "snake oil liniment", which made various claims such as being able to cure disease, smooth wrinkles, remove stains, prolong life or cure any number of common ailments. Most shows had their own "patent medicine" (products which were for the most part unpatented, but which took the name to sound official). Entertainments often included a freak show, a flea circus, musical acts, magic tricks, jokes, or storytelling. Each show was run by a man posing as a doctor who drew the crowd with a monologue. The entertainers, such as acrobats, musclemen, magicians, dancers, ventriloquists, exotic performers, and trick shots, kept the audience engaged until the salesman sold his medicine. While showmen pitching miraculous cures have been around since classical times, the advent of mixed performance and medicine sales in western culture originated during the Dark Ages in Europe after circuses and theatres were banned and performers had only the marketplace or patrons for support. Mountebanks traveled through small towns and large cities, selling miraculous elixirs by offering small street shows and miraculous cures. Itinerant peddlers of dubious medicines appeared in the American colonies before 1772, when legislation prohibiting their activities was enacted. Increasingly elaborate performances were developed to appeal to a largely rural population. Over the course of the nineteenth century, traveling mountebanks gave way to more polished medicine shows, which availed themselves of a burgeoning patent medicine industry. At least 1,500 patent medicines were recorded by 1858, affording enterprising drifters a specific product to sell.

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Related concepts (2)

Patent medicine

A patent medicine (sometimes called a proprietary medicine) is a non-prescription medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name, and claimed to be effective against minor disorders and symptoms, as opposed to an ethical drug that could be obtained only through a pharmacist, usually with a doctor's prescription, and whose composition was openly disclosed. Many over-the-counter medicines were once ethical drugs obtainable only by prescription, and thus are not patent medicines.

Medicine show