About the Event
During the 19th and early 20th Century medicine were nothing like they are today. From medical practitioners who insisted that electrical shocks were wonderful for improving your health to those that thought exposure to radioactive radium in drinking water were the medical ways of the future, so much of the conventional wisdom of the time just leaves us shaking our heads in disbelief today.
In this fascinating display we will look at the world of patent remedies and questionable treatments which were the stock-in-trade of the less reputable medical men of the era. A phrase which had been handed down to us from then is “Snake oil salesman.” This came from a famous 19th century remedy which when tested in 1904 proved to contain no snake at all. And if you were wondering, goanna oil no longer contains any actual goannas!
See this and more at the Mandurah Museum.
