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FDA and 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.
Today Americans are denied the whoop-dedoo promotion of Barry's Tricopherous, or Kickapoo Indian Sagwa, or Wine of Cardui, or Madame Dean's French Female Pills, or Dr. Dye's Voltaic Belt, or even Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People. But the television viewer, morosely staring at an armpit, or watching little hammers beat a brain, or listening to the simulated gurgling of a stomach, knows that the spirit of the medicine man is still around.