Patent Medicine is a nonprescription commercial medicinal preparation that is typically heavily advertised, and whose contents are incompletely disclosed. It is often used to refer to a product (such as an elixir, tonic, or liniment) that was marketed as a medicine in the U.S. during the 1800s and early 1900s, but was typically of unproven effectiveness and questionable safety.
Patent medicines continue to be used when evidence-based cures exist such as reparations, restitution, re-investment in underserved neighborhoods, poverty-reduction, and free college. See “Thank You For the Symbolic Gestures But Black People Need Reparations” by Janice Gassam Asare.
This summer the Association of Imaginary Schools will host a traveling exhibit of vintage Patent Medicines as part of its Outreach for Inclusion program. At the opening reception, the white curator will deliver an address entitled, “My Role In the Civil Rights Movement and Why the Right Wing is To Blame for Racism”.