An acquaintance of mine recently claimed he’d participated years ago in veterinary field tests of a “magic salve” that allegedly caused carbuncles, skin cancers, warts and other manner of topical afflictions, to simply fall off. He claims that the substance, which he described as like thick axle grease with grit in it, caused an “eye cancer” on one of his cows to simply crust over and fall off. He recited a series of similar events in which the sores and huge warts, when treated with the substance, grew gross scabs over them, then fell off, leaving a hole that eventually healed and “haired over,” all with no scar.
After several weeks of the field tests, according my the story teller, he received a letter telling him to pack up his records and any product left and send them back. That was the last anyone ever heard of the magic salve.
This has all the hallmarks of a classic urban (or, in this case, rural) legend. I checked Snopes, but couldn’t find any reference to it. Has anyone heard a similar story, specifically about veterinary field tests?
This page at Quackwatch.com gives an overview of such topical treatments, including a little bit of historical background. As can be surmised from the name of the site, the author isn’t too keen on them.
Whoa! Be careful clicking on that link! There was an extremely unpleasant photo there of a lady who lost most of her face using a ‘cancer salve.’ Man… it really put me off my donut, let me tell you.
The dermatologist prescribed an ointment for Hubby which was effective in removing small skin cancers. “Fluorouracil cream” the tube says. Perhaps the “magic salve” of which you speak was an early version?
Whoa! Those are some nasty ass pictures. Apropos of nothing, I had a bit of skin cancer on my cheek a couple of years ago and after Moh’s surgery, my doctor prescribed a cream that is also used for genital warts. I had to apply it to my entire face (in sections over time) and it caused much redness and skin sloughing (nothing like the pictures on that site though, praise Baby Jesus!). So not only did I look like a leper but my local pharmacist thought I had an STD. Nice.
That “salve” is very likely a well known useless quack remedy, the Hoxsey formula. It has killed tens of thousands who used it instead of real medicine.
This was specifically for veterinary uses. I didn’t get the idea that this was “caustic,” per se, but rather that it has some magical properties that made the body reject the carbuncular or cancerous tissue. The guy swore that he’d actually used it on one of his cows and had seen it used on two horses with amazing results.
It’s important to sa yhere that I simply don’t believe the guy. There was a sense of conspiracy – the stuff worked too well, apparently, and the pharmaceutical companies didn’t want it on the market, etc. Also, the vague time frame (“This was quite a few years ago…”) makes the whole thing sound like something Snopes would debunk. I just wondered if anyone else had ever heard of it.
Thanks to Czarcasm for the fix. You guys do a hard job well.