Ingedients being hard to come by, and the market uninformed but spend-happy, hucksters appeared and the "medicine show‘ emerged. Patent medicines were also amongst the first widely advertised products in mass media beginning in the mid-19th century.

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/how-snake-oil-got-...

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/scimag/?q=10.1007%2Fs12686-014-0200-1

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/08/26/215761377/a-h...

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/omega3-fatty...