THE rise of the internet has made it easier for misinformation to spread, including hoax medical cures.

But the history of bad medicine is littered with examples of false remedies and dangerously misunderstood drugs.

Snake Oil

The term 'snake oil salesmen' is used today as a catch-all term to cover anyone selling fraudulent health products, but in 19th Century America consumers were sold 'cure-all' ointments and lotions said to contain actual snake oil obtained from boiling rattlesnakes.

The craze is believed to have derived from Chinese medicine which has used oil from Chinese water-snakes for centuries as a treatment for arthritis and other joint pains.

Recent scientific research suggests there is some health benefit to this due to its very high Omage-3 fatty acid content.

However, there is no evidence of any benefit from rattlesnake oil and, in many cases, products touted as 'snake oil' actually contained a mix of other animal fats and petroleum.

Heroin as cough medicine

In 1895, a new drug called dimorphine (better known today as heroin) was hailed as being five times more effective – but much less addictive – than morphine.

Drug company, Bayer pharmaceuticals, began selling heroin-laced aspirin in the US in 1898 which it marketed towards children suffering coughs, colds, and sore throats.

By 1912 is was gaining popularity as a recreational drug, and was soon banned.

Electricity

In the late 1700s, physicians were eager to prescribe electrotherapy as a cure for just about everything, from epilepsy and blindness to tapeworms, kidney stones or haemorrhoids.

Some unfortunate patients with toothaches were even given a jolt of electricity in a bid to ease their pain.

Carrots

In his late 1740s tome 'An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases', British evangelist John Wesley suggested “a fortnight on boiled carrots only” to treat asthma.

Malaria 'cure'

In 3rd Century Rome, one physician treated his malaria patients by telling them to write Abracadabra over and over on a piece of paper before attaching to a necklace, wearing it for nine days, then tossing the paper into an east-flowing stream.

If that failed, they had to rub themselves in lion fat instead.

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Bleach?

The pandemic became a fountain of misinformation for Covid cures, but in April 2020 there was widespread disbelief when President Donald Trump appeared to suggest that bleach could be injected into people to fight the virus.

Disinfectant poisonings in the US subsequently rose by 121%.

'Miracles' do happen

There are genuine cases of "spontaneous regression" in cancer. Around one in 100,000 cancer patients appear to 'heal themselves' without treatment, although rates are more common in some childhood cancers such as neuroblastoma.

Over the centuries it is likely that a few of these cases will have overlapped with patients given 'miracle cures', but modern research suggests the phenomenon is probably rooted in rare immune system responses.

One study showed that 90% of patients who had spontaneously recovered from leukaemia had suffered another illness, such as pneumonia, shortly before.

Other research has uncovered links between tumours disappearing and cases of diphtheria, gonorrhoea, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, measles, smallpox and syphilis.

It is thought that the immune response triggered by these infections may create conditions for 'cell suicide', triggering the cancer to kill itself.