That can't be real, can it?

Well, whether or it's real... it works.

Yeah, it's real. My folks bought a really old house, and I found that ad - and a lot worse - in some really old magazines.

Cigarettes are good for you, too ;)

Tapeworms, cocaine, uranium.... all good things that doctors used to recommend!

RobertBruce: Tapeworms, cocaine, uranium.... all good things that doctors used to recommend!

There was a place called The Uranium Health Mine outside of Helena, Montana. You could rent rooms in the mine and bask in the warm radiation of the uranium mine for as long as you wanted.

I'm not sure if it's closed now or not. I used to live in Montana, and the stoopit is contagious ;)

I like the part about, "No ill effects."

I remember x-raying my own feet in the shoe store in the fifties. This may explain why they are still growing at my age.

RobertBruce: Tapeworms, cocaine, uranium.... all good things that doctors used to recommend!

people flock to anything new and strange for a change

I'm going to have to call fake on this.

Copyrights, trademarks, and lawyers existed 100 years ago and there's no possible way all those companies whose products are pictured gave permission to use their products in an ad for tapeworms.

Plus, why are they selling "Jar Packed" "Sanitized" tapeworms like they're a delicious snack?
Wouldn't it be easier to pack, ship, and eat a few microscopic tapeworm eggs?

It's real.

Opera star Maria Callas was a famous user of tapeworms.

I remember some interview with Jenny McCarthy from the mid-nineties where she claimed (between bites of a 20 piece McNugget) the reason she was able to eat whatever she wanted and remain thin was constant diarrhea. She might have been saying this to further her "sexy gross-out" image at the time, but it is, like parasites, a way to never gain weight.

Psychotropic: I'm going to have to call fake on this.

And you'd be wrong.

Psychotropic: The Onanist: And you'd be wrong.
Then prove me so.

Snopes says undetermined. (new window)

It won't take my credit card number! Help!

This is the species whose heads are occasionally sold as active ingredients of "reducing pills."

Time Magazine
The Persistent Parasites
Monday, Apr. 08, 1957

Not impressed

Farking Sweet: It won't take my credit card number! Help!


haha

Crazy weight loss ad from 2008



/everything old is new

I like how it says "no baths". So you can be thin AND smelly?

Ruca: I like how it says "no baths". So you can be thin AND smelly?

Steam baths were and are a popular form of quick-result weight-reduction. Sweat out a couple of pounds of water = zOMG SKINNY!!11!

Yea you never gain weight but where's the nutrition? Eventually they're going to make you sick, from lack of vitamins and minerals and all that jazz. Not to mention if you poop, don't wash your hands and dick around with other peoples stuff, you'll keep passing on tapeworms to everybody else. Didn't any of these people take biology in high school.

Okay, this part cracks me up:

"No Diet - No Baths"

No baths, and I can still lose weight?

Sold!

I guess taking baths were quite unpopular back then, even though you could lose weight from them? I ... don't ... want ... to ... know.

Ewwww

I have NEVER wanted a tape worm MORE!!!

Psychotropic: The Onanist: And you'd be wrong.
Then prove me so.

I'm going to call shenanigans myself. You can see the difference in color where the "Tape Worms" was 'shopped in.

Ruca: I like how it says "no baths". So you can be thin AND smelly?

If you're really dirty, a bath will probably help you shed more weight. Even more if you shave your legs.

Halfmast Trousers: That can't be real, can it?

I don't know if this ad is real (might be shopped), but this is no news. It's still done today.

The drawback is to kill those sumbiatches you have to take pills that really do damage to your liver. So you're stuck with them until you want to do real danger to your body to get rid of them.

Me calls real. Old book around here about medical quackery. Tis mentioned.

Well, to be honest, if you go on that diet you automatically become one of only two types of people who can refer to themselves as we.

Snopes calls this undetermined. (new window)

Funny blurb from it, though:

"...Besides the usual unnamed woman who stars in such tales, some famous ladies have been fingered, including Claudia Schiffer and Maria Callas."

I wasn't gonna call shenanigans but it is kinda strange how all the text uses different fonts. Theres gotta be like 10+ different fonts used for that ad. I don't know if old time typesetting would have made that every practical. I can however totally see people using tapeworms to loose weight. I know someone who had one for a few years and dropped from fattie to hottie back in highschool.

MAYORBOB's comment intrigues me in a way that Plastic didn't.

Dr. Quasius: Psychotropic: The Onanist: And you'd be wrong.
Then prove me so.

I'm going to call shenanigans myself. You can see the difference in color where the "Tape Worms" was 'shopped in.

I agree, but I can only imagine what kind of ridiculous snake oil cure was in the real ad before "Tape Worms" was shoop'd in.

I had had some uninvited guests in my intestinal track during high school owing to a busted water pipe from an earthquake. Yes, it does work, but you feel like crap. (Fatigue mainly)

dangelder -- I haven't posted on that site in over two years.

I find diarrhea works well.

tonygotskilz: I wasn't gonna call shenanigans but it is kinda strange how all the text uses different fonts. Theres gotta be like 10+ different fonts used for that ad. I don't know if old time typesetting would have made that every practical.

Suspending all judgment on the reality of the ad... it looks to me as if it was made entirely of clipart, which is why the lady appears to be hankering for whole bags of salt and flour, as well as massive jars of condiments.

MAYORBOB: dangelder -- I haven't posted on that site in over two years.

It ain't gotten any better.

poop

I've seen actual tapeworm-as-diet-aid advertisement posters at The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, formerly of Minneapolis, now part of the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul.

/great place.

How do you sanitize a tapeworm?

It's an actual ad. My law professor used this as an example of some of the bogus 'snake oil' products that existed prior to the FDA's good manufacturing practices outlined in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

And how the hell did subby get exclamation marks in the headline? Are those kosher now? Did I miss something?

/I bet he used the lower case 'I' from an upside-down font...

Danny Kaye unavailable for comment?

It's not news, its crappy, user submitted blogs!