Introduction

Before the 19 o six pure food and drug act, there were almost no regulations in place to prevent doctors or snake oil salesmen from peddling whatever tinctures they thought might heal someone. For hundreds of years, the science behind medicine was well questionable. In 16 68, Edward walpole had been a member of parliament for the town of king's lynn in norfolk when he took some of goddard's drops. Walpole died after suffering a seizure shortly thereafter. But that didn't stop people from believing in the drops power, especially since they were chock full of human skulls. Skulls had been used in medicinal treatments from the sixteenh century all the way through the eighteenth