Snake Oil Revisited: Plant Medicine in American History

Medicinal herbs are usually described these days as alternatives to prescribed and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. But, until well into the twentieth century, plant medicines were sold by Merck, Parke-Davis, Eli Lilly, and other early pharmaceutical companies. Doctors of all schools prescribed them, and people looking for cures and relief purchased the herbs without prescription at drugstores, medicine shows, and by mail order. Historian Susan Strasser will discuss plants as ordinary as peppermint and as powerful as the opium poppy, and practitioners including Lydia Pinkham (creator of the most famous patent medicine for women) and the Shakers (who made more money from medicinal herbs than from furniture).

Susan Strasser is an award-winning historian and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. She has been praised by the New Yorker for “retrieving what history discards: the taken-for-granted minutiae of everyday life.” Her books include “Never Done: A History of American Housework, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market,” and “Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash.” She is Richards Professor Emerita of American History at the University of Delaware.