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At height of Prohibition, people in Oklahoma City start falling victim to a strange new paralysis. Initial symptoms include burning and cramping of the calves, then numbness and tingling in the feet and legs. Finally, they suffer a paralysis of the muscles that move the toes and ankle, making it impossible to walk properly.

The symptoms are similar to polio, or lead poisoning, or even syphilis, but these causes are soon ruled out. What else could it be? Only one common thread emerges—the victims all took a particular patent medicine, an elixir called Jamaica Ginger prior to the onset of the paralysis. But how could this concoction—taken safely for decades—suddenly cause this outbreak of a disease which soon became knows as “Jake Leg”? Had the elixir been adulterated?

Ultimately, tens of thousands of people were afflicted with Jake Leg, an epidemic that is believed to have been the largest mass poisoning in America. And yet the tragedy was nearly lost to history but for the musicians who recorded the infamy in song.

Toxic Tonic traces the investigation of this mysterious outbreak and tells the story of the music that immortalized the tragedy.