Overview 

The Medicine Show is an episodic comedy/drama series which chronicles the old time medicine shows, snake oil salesmen, alternative health movements, spiritual revivals and patent medicine boom of the 1800s. The series explores touches several other historical themes such as: New Thought, mesmirism, the cereal wars, water cures, vegetarnian movements, traditional herbal healing, homeopathy, early psychology, the "progressive" era of lunatic asylums, medieval alchemy, aboriginal wisdom, hucksters, grifters, pitch men and the birth of the modern pharmaceutical industry.

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Dr. York crisscrosses the country treating the poor for free, warning people about the dangers of opium tonics, teaching people about cure alls and selling the tried and true cannabis/ginseng remedy his family has passed along for generations.
 

What Were Medicine Shows?​

Medicine shows were touring acts, which peddled "miracle cure" patent medicines and other products between various entertainments. They developed from European mountebank shows and were common in the United States in the nineteenth century, especially in the Old West.

 

They usually promoted "miracle elixirs", which, it was claimed, had the ability to cure disease, smooth wrinkles, remove stains, prolong life or cure any number of common ailments. Most shows had their own patent medicine. Entertainments included magic tricks, storytelling, acrobats, musclemen, magic, dancers, ventriloquists, exotic performers, and trick shots.

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