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Chinese Snake Oil ISN'T Bogus!

It's interesting that the vocal objectivists here often refer to subjectivist claims or tweaks as being "snake oil". Perhaps the supposedly scientific members of PHP don't realize that the origins of snake oil isn't bogus at all. Fact is snake oil originally came from China, where it is called shéyóu. There, it was used as a remedy for inflammation and pain in rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, and other similar conditions. Snake oil is still used as pain reliever in China. Fats and oils from snakes in China are higher in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) than other sources, so snake oil was actually a plausible remedy for joint pain as these are thought to have inflammation reducing properties. Snake oil is still sold in traditional Chinese pharmacy stores.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA or also icosapentaenoic acid) is an omega-3 fatty acid. In physiological literature, it is given the name 20:5(n-3). It also has the trivial name timnodonic acid. Chemically, EPA is a carboxylic acid with a 20-carbon chain and five cis double bonds; the first double bond is located at the third carbon from the omega end.

Since EPA was unknown in the 19th century, and various medicine salesmen or manufacturers seldom had enough skills in analytical chemistry to analyze the contents and actually find out what, if anything, made snake oil the "miracle" medicine it was claimed to be, snake oil became the archetype of hoax. It's of interest to note that American snake fats do not have EPA contents as high as those of the Chinese water snake, thus the American snake oils were possibly less efficient pain relievers than the original Chinese snake oil — further promoting the "hoax" stereotype.

Given Dr. Richard Kunin's 1989 analysis it appears that the Chinese snake oil made from Chinese water snakes is very high in EPA. This substance is known to be a pain reliever, and the Chinese snake oil products may contain up to 4% of it. Snake oil does not have the dubious reputation in China that it has in the US and elsewhere in the Western world, and it is used widely in traditional Chinese medicine. However, it is not seen as a panacea in China either; there it is used only as relief for arthritis and joint pain.

From a purely pharmacochemical perspective, it is likely that the genuine Chinese snake oil is not fraudulent, at least for its intended purpose. On the other hand, American products made from rattlesnake fats, which have at most 1/3 of the EPA concentration of Enhydris chinensis fat, are likely to have been inferior or even useless for similar purposes. 19th century snake oil peddlers and apothecarians seldom had any serious knowledge of chemistry or pharmacology. It is likely that they did not understand the action mechanism of the Chinese product, or even know its functional ingredient. Instead of analyzing the authentic remedy, they tried to imitate it with unimpressive results. Such inferior or even fraudulent products gave snake oil the reputation it has today.

So Chinese snake oil itself is NOT a bogus product and it appears that the peddlers who sold American snake oil in the old west probably didn't realise American snake oil would be different than Chinese snake oil, so may of these peddlers were not intentionally attempting to defraud their customers. Perhaps todays audio objectivists are a lot like the manufacturers of American snake oil in the old days. They just lack enough skills to analyze the contents of subjectivist claims and tweaks, to actually find out what, if anything, makes these claims and tweaks cause the differences heard!

Thetubeguy1954

"If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.” Richard Feynman theoretical physicist, 1918-1988


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