The medical device pirate of today, of course, is a far more sophisticated operator than his predecessor of yesteryear -- the gallus-snapping hawker of snake oil and other patent medicines.

However, he is also known for lies and self-promotion, and criticized on these grounds — Martin Gardner's assessment continues " but also obviously a hustler ", Canadian puzzler Mel Stover called Loyd " an old reprobate ", and Matthew Costello calls him both " puzzledom's greatest celebrity ... popularizer, genius ," but also " huckster ... and fast-talking snake oil salesman.

The phrase snake oil is a derogatory term used to describe quackery, the promotion of fraudulent or unproven medical practices.

By extension, the term " snake oil salesman " may be applied to someone who sells fraudulent goods, or who is a fraud himself.

Haubrich claims through mispronunciation this became " Sen-ake-a oil " and eventually " snake oil ".

Chinese labourers on railroad gangs involved in building the First Transcontinental Railroad first gave snake oil to Europeans with joint pain.

When rubbed on the skin at the painful site, snake oil was claimed to bring relief.

This claim was ridiculed by rival medicine salesmen, and in time, snake oil became a generic name for many compounds marketed as panaceas or miraculous remedies whose ingredients were usually secret, unidentified, or mis-characterized and mostly inert or ineffective.

Since there was no federal regulation in the USA concerning safety and effectiveness of drugs until the 1906 Food and Drugs Act and various medicine salesmen or manufacturers seldom had enough skills in analytical chemistry to analyze the contents of snake oil, it became the archetype of hoax.

The snake oil peddler became a stock character in Western movies: a travelling " doctor " with dubious credentials, selling fake medicines with boisterous marketing hype, often supported by pseudo-scientific evidence.

The composition of snake oil medicines varies markedly between products.

Stanley's snake oil -- produced by Clark Stanley, the " Rattlesnake King "-- was tested by the United States government in 1917.

Soon after the decision, " snake oil " became synonymous with false cures and " snake-oil salesmen " became a tag for charlatans.

* Poppy: W. C. Fields's film about a Western frontier American snake oil salesman complete with a surreptitious crowd accomplice.

* Disney's Pete's Dragon: The greedy " Doc " Terminus, played by Jim Dale, gave a testament to the persuasive power of the snake oil salesman.

* The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Mark Twain presents Aunt Polly as a true believer in various sorts of snake oil, though not always in the form of an alleged medicine.

* Red Dead Redemption: A number of missions involves John Marston working with a snake oil salesman, Nigel West Dickens, as a shill, so he can sell his tonics to ignorant farmhands, despite them not doing anything.

When TrueType and the license to Microsoft was announced, John Warnock of Adobe gave an impassioned speech in which he claimed Apple and Microsoft were selling snake oil, and then announced that the Type 1 format was open for anyone to use.

Her father Reuben " Old Buck " Buckman Claflin was a con man and snake oil salesman.

* Contortionists apply snake oil to their joints or drink special elixirs to become flexible.

It featured a W. C. Fields-like carpetbagging con artist and snake oil salesman named J. Mortimer Gusto, ( a. k. a. " the Great Gusto ").

In the United States, false medicines in this era were often denoted by the slang term snake oil, a reference to sales pitches for the false medicines that claimed exotic ingredients provided the supposed benefits.

Those who sold them were called " snake oil salesmen ," and usually sold their medicines with a fervent pitch similar to a fire and brimstone religious sermon.

One group of patent medicines — liniments that allegedly contained snake oil, supposedly a panacea — made snake oil salesman a lasting synonym for a charlatan.

Near the Faux Shop, there is also a small cart that is run by a snake oil salesman who likes to swindle as many people as he can meet.

Put bluntly, I believe you are a snake oil salesman, a narcissist that would say anything to draw attention to himself.

Put bluntly, I believe you are a snake oil salesman, a narcissist that would say anything to draw attention to himself.

It is speculated that Semitic people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for " snake " may have begun with that sound.

Venomous snake bites may cause a variety of symptoms, including pain, swelling, tissue necrosis, low blood pressure, convulsions, hemorrhage ( varying by species of snake ), respiratory paralysis, kidney failure, coma and death.

Many snake species, which are not directly dependent on surface water, may be found both within the inner gorge and the Colorado River corridor.

Alternatively, a balloon may carry a thicker instrumented " snake " in place of the gondola and guiderope, combining the functions of the two.

Thus, a sword may symbolize a penis, as may a snake.

Some predators kill large prey and dismember or chew it prior to eating it, such as a jaguar or a human ; others may eat their ( usually much smaller ) prey whole, as does a bottlenose dolphin swallowing a fish, or a snake, duck or stork swallowing a frog.

Although a snake is defending itself from the encroachment of its victim into the snake's immediate vicinity, the unannounced and deadly strike may seem unduly vengeful when measured against the unwitting victim's perceived lack of blameworthiness.

Skaði is described as having taken a venomous snake and fastening it above the bound Loki, so that the venom may dip on to Loki's face.

In the moonless night, a rope lying on the ground may be mistaken for a snake.

A new article by Cecelia Klein ( 2008 ) argues that the famous Coatlicue statue in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico, and several other complete and fragmentary versions, may actually represent a personified snake skirt.

The American assault on Ireland under the name of Fenianism may be now held to have failed, but the snake is only scotched and not killed.

Culebra ( meaning snake in Spanish ) may refer to:

A sudden onset of drooling may indicate poisoning ( especially by pesticides or mercury ) or reaction to snake or insect venom or in some cases of a numbed mouth from either Orajel, or when going to the dentist office.

Plath was a patient at McLean Hospital, an upscale facility which resembled the " snake pit " much less than certain wards in Metropolitan State Hospital, which may have been where Mary Jane Ward was actually hospitalized.

A skatepark may contain half-pipes, quarter pipes, spine transfers, handrails, funboxes, vert ramps, pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, pools, bowls, snake runs stairsets, and any number of other objects.

Snakebite or snake bite may refer to:

Performers may do acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, card tricks, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions and escapes, dance, singing, fiddling, fire eating, fire breathing, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime and a mime variation where the artist performs as a living statue, musical performance, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or recite poetry or prose as a bard, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, and even put on a flea circus.

Alternatively, it may surprise its prey by curving its body and, bracing itself with its posteriorly positioned fins, launching a quick strike forward in the manner of a snake.

The milk snake is not listed by the IUCN ( a wildlife conservation union ), but in some areas, they may face significant pressure due to pet trade collection.