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Visual motif: two children playing outside; fence and house in background. Patent medicines are compounds promoted and sold as medical cures that do not work as promoted. "Patent medicine" is a misnomer since in most cases, although products might be trademarked, they are not patented. The promotion of patent medicines was one of the first major products highlighted by the advertising industry, and many advertising and sales techniques were pioneered by patent medicine promoters. Cocaine (benzoylmethylecgonine) is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. For over a thousand years South American indigenous peoples have chewed the leaves of Erythroxylon coca, a plant that contains vital nutrients as well as numerous alkaloids, including cocaine. Western medicine was quick to exploit the possible uses of this plant.
