Quoting from 'Ascorbate' (Which you should all read to be enlightened - it really is a great book and costs $6 for an online version!)
The establishment has likened people explaining the benefits of vitamin c to peddlers of snake oil. This turns out to be an interesting analogy. Dr Udo Erasmus recently investigated the origin of the derisory term snake-oil (21) He found that snake oil was a traditional Chinese treatment introduced to the United States by Chinese labourers laying the early railway lines. They persuaded fellow workers to use snake- oil, to reduce inflammation and arthritic pain. Rubbing snake oil into the skin was said to bring symptomatic relief. The sellers of patent medicines saw the use of snake- oil as a threat and disparaged the use of the treatment, to the extent that snake oil continues to have a bad name to the present day. (21) Erasmus U. (1993) Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, Alive Books, Canada
In 1989, a Californian physician, Dr Richard Kunin, investigated the properties of oil form the Chine water snake .(22) This snake-oil used in Chinese medicine, was found to contain the highest proportion of omega-3 fatty acids in a natural oil (20%). Since omega-3 fatty acids are potent inhibitors of inflammation, there is every reason to suppose that snake-oil was effective. The term 'snake-oil actually refers to the use of a now established anti- inflammatory substance, in a treatment suppressed for financial gain.
(22) Kunin R.A. (1989) Snake Oil, West J Med, 151(2),208.
