Eclectric Oil
Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil was widely sold as a cure-all in the second half of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. This was even though, as Wikipedia notes, it "mostly contained common ingredients such as turpentine and camphor oil."
Some of the things it supposedly cured included rheumatism, lame backs, sore throats, coughs and colds, throat and lung disease, and asthma. It could even cure "chicken flesh wounds" (see ad below).
Wikipedia notes that the name Eclectric Oil was "likely a portmanteau of the words 'eclectic' and 'electric', alluding to the then-popular belief that electricity had curative powers." Of course, the oil was not electric in any way.
Some of the things it supposedly cured included rheumatism, lame backs, sore throats, coughs and colds, throat and lung disease, and asthma. It could even cure "chicken flesh wounds" (see ad below).
Wikipedia notes that the name Eclectric Oil was "likely a portmanteau of the words 'eclectic' and 'electric', alluding to the then-popular belief that electricity had curative powers." Of course, the oil was not electric in any way.
image source: wellcome collection
Canadian Poultry Review - Apr 1926
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Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil | Nineteenth Century