logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2024
33m 19s

How the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company...

Shondaland Audio and iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

John Healy wasn’t a real doctor. Charles Bigelow was never a scout in the United States Army. And, the products they sold weren’t actually based on healing secrets of the Kickapoo people. Yet, the two men made a fortune from their Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company patent medicines – which, while named for them, not a single Kickapoo was involved with the company or its remedies. The story of Healy and Bigelow is one of quackery, lies, native cultural appropriation, and ... wait, did we call out the cultural appropriation? Yes? Well, then, let's talk about this. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
May 2024
That Time Perry Davis Trademarked ‘Pain Killer’ and Then Took It Global
By the time he was in his 40s, Perry Davis was an entrepreneur who had tried, unsuccessfully, to start multiple businesses; and those failures had left him $4,500 in debt – roughly more than $160,000 today. In 1839, his bad luck continued when he then became ill with debilitating ... Show More
38m 2s
May 2024
Asthma and Smoking: When Cigarettes Were Medicine
In 1946, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launched an ad campaign with the slogan, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” Long before Camel cigarettes became the doctor-approved cigarette of choice, at least in advertising, people living with asthma were often instruc ... Show More
26m 19s
May 2024
‘A Niagara of Curls’: The Story of the Seven Sutherland Sisters
“It’s the Hair – not the Hat That Makes a Woman Attractive,” read one ad for the Seven Sutherland Sisters’ scalp cleaner. Sisters Sarah, Victoria, Isabella, Grace, Naomi, Dora, and Mary Sutherland were performers who sang and played instruments, but what the crowds came to see wa ... Show More
31m 32s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2022
The Chicago Tylenol Murders Pt. 1
Forty years ago, cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules led to the deaths of seven people all around the Chicago area. America was gripped by paranoia and fear. Why was this happening? Who would be next? Police grasped for suspects who might be the so-called “Mad Poisoner.” We’re joined ... Show More
39m 48s
Oct 2022
The Chicago Tylenol Murders Pt. 1
Listeners, we’re popping back into your feed this week to share a special crossover episode from Serial Killers and Conspiracy Theories. Forty years ago, cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules led to the deaths of seven people all around the Chicago area. America was gripped by paranoia ... Show More
40m 48s
Oct 2022
The Chicago Tylenol Murders Pt. 3
This is the finale of our Serial Killers and Conspiracy Theories crossover: By 2011, the FBI was ready to reexamine the evidence. A theory emerged: What if the Mad Poisoner was actually the Unabomber? Ted Kaczynski had proven he was a revenge-seeking terrorist, and he had connect ... Show More
42m 46s
May 2025
Fentanyl: Actually As Dangerous As They Say
Around 2013 heroin users in the US and other countries suddenly started dying from overdose in previously-unseen numbers. The culprit turned out to be the incredibly potent drug fentanyl and it soon created a massive new wave in the opioid epidemic.See omnystudio.com/listener for ... Show More
49m 46s
Jul 2025
She Poisoned His Medicine - The Stella Nickell story
<p>Stella Nickell, a former airport screener from Washington state, was convicted in May 1988 of deliberately tampering with Excedrin capsules by lacing them with cyanide, causing the deaths of her husband, Bruce, and an unsuspecting woman, Sue Snow.</p> 
8m 31s
Dec 2024
BEST OF CRIME HOUSE 2024: The Tylenol Murders
As the end of the year approaches, we're revisiting the best episodes of 2024 from Crime House. On Murder: True Crime Stories, Carter Roy examined the case of the Tylenol Murders. In the fall of 1982, seven people in Chicago were killed by poisoned Tylenol pills. In the first of ... Show More
59m 37s
Mar 2018
“Cocaine Godmother” - Griselda Blanco
Griselda Blanco was born in Colombia on February 15, 1943. By age 11, Griselda committed her first of many murders. We follow her rise to becoming one of the first infamous leaders of the 1970’s drug trade. Between cold-blooded killing and drug overdoses, many died at the hands o ... Show More
45m 57s
Jan 2025
157: The Painkiller Problem: How Fentanyl Took Over America
Hi friends, happy Wednesday!Last year I had a surgery so that I could breathe again, and it’s been nice, thanks for asking! I love breathing. But when I was in the hospital, the doctors gave me some really strong pain medication. I asked what it was, and the doctor told me it was ... Show More
41m 8s
Mar 2021
Mayhem and Murder
In the 1950s, the CIA conducted highly controversial research on mind-altering drugs to prepare for brain warfare with global superpowers. But after a checkered past, George White’s off-the-books Operation Midnight Climax took whatever flimsy rulebook the CIA had and threw it out ... Show More
28m 13s
Jan 2024
Griselda Blanco and Miami's Drug Wars: Netflix's New Narcos
Dubbed the Cocaine Godmother and the Black Widow, Griselda Blanco rose to power when the cocaine boom was taking off and Colombian cartels started pumping product into the US, mainly through Miami. As the floodgates opened and tens of millions of dollars were being made on the st ... Show More
48m 38s