One need only consider the term snake oil salesman to see advertisements root as emotional and non-fact-based. The term dates back to the late 1800, and fascinatingly, only came to refer to a fake product when White men copied a Chinese recipe which actually did reduce inflammation. The Chinese laborers would use this oil after a hard day's work, but used water snakes, which did not exist in California.

Clark Stanley, a former cowboy, copied this tincture, but claimed it came from the Hopi tribe of Native Americans and used rattlesnakes, which had barely any of the anti-inflammatory chemicals as the original Chinese recipe.

More importantly, a Federal government regulation in 1906, with the intention of cracking down on "patent medicine", discovered (in 1917) that Stanley's snake oil, had, in fact, no snake oil in it at all! For this gross violation of consumer trust, Stanley was fined $20, or about $500 in today's dollars.