FIGUROIDS.

The tablets sold under the name of Figuroids are or were recently supplied by a London Company, price 2s. 9d. per bottle, containing 12 large and 12 small tablets.

They were described in a pamphlet enclosed in the package as

A Scientific Obesity Cure discovered through an accident while making Scientific Investigations in the Laboratory.

Other extracts from the pamphlet are as follows:

In looking through quantities of anti-fat literature one finds all kinds of crude, ignorant explanations, such as, for example, that the remedy absorbs the fat. Now, a sponge absorbs water, or any dry thing will absorb a liquid, but common sense will tell you that a liquid taken into the body will not absorb fat; you can clearly understand that point without further explanation. Another remedy, it is claimed, simply destroys the fat. This explanation is, as you can see, equally preposterous. In Nature nothing is destroyed. When a piece of coal is burned it is not destroyed, it is only changed into gases and smoke, and fat is not destroyed by any remedy.

Now here is the true and scientific explanation. When Figuroids are taken, and the fat passes out of those cells into the circulation, it is oxidized. This produces chiefly water and carbonic acid gas. This oxidation takes place while it is being carried along in the circulating blood. This carbonic acid gas and water vapour are eliminated from the system as already explained.

When you take Figuroids, therefore, your extra fat simply passes from the adipose cells through their unbroken walls into the blood, and is there changed to water and Carbon Dioxide, and thus leaves the body.

This is the scientific, simple, natural explanation, and Figuroids is the only remedy which has the effect....

If then you are exceedingly stout and suffering from all the unpleasant symptoms resulting from that condition, if you find your weight excessive, if you suffer from heart palpitation, if you have redness of the face with annoying perspiration and shiny appearance of the nose and face, if the throat and bosom are altogether too stout, and if the lines of the figure have been lost, or if the abdomen has become too prominent, if Gout and Rheumatism make themselves manifest occasionally, and all the disagreeable and often dangerous symptoms of Obesity are apparent, you will know that in Figuroids you have a perfectly safe remedy, while if you suffer but slightly from Obesity and all the symptoms are less marked, you will also know that Figuroids furnish you with an effective, agreeable, and perfectly Safe cure....

When taking Figuroids it is not necessary to unduly restrict yourself in the matter of diet. You may eat and drink what you desire in reason. It would of course, be foolish to drink or eat excessively of fat or fattening foods.

In another enclosed circular the Company stated that:

They have decided to originate a No Cure No Payment system, and will refund the purchase money to any patient whose weight is not reduced by from two to six pounds per month whilst taking Figuroids.... This offer to refund purchase money is made on the understanding that the Figuroid Company’s instructions are faithfully observed and the conditions of their offer complied with.

The directions on the label were as follows:

Each bottle contains an equal number of full doses (large tablet) and half doses (small tablet).

Take regularly one full dose (large tablet) dissolved in plain or soda water within 30 minutes after each of the first three meals on the first day. Next day take one half dose (small tablet) dissolved in plain or soda water within 30 minutes after each of the three meals. Third day take full doses again; and so continue alternating.

Although it is here clearly conveyed, without directly making the statement, that the large and small tablets only differ in being full doses and half doses respectively, examination showed their composition to be different, and it was necessary to analyse them separately.

Large Tablets.

The large tablets had an average weight of 58 grains; analysis showed them to contain an effervescing mixture of sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid, in which the former was in excess, so that the resulting product was alkaline, together with sodium chloride (common salt), phenolphthalein, formamine (hexamethylene-tetramine), talc, and gum. The quantity of each of the ingredients was determined as accurately as possible, with the results given below; it will be noted that these quantities add up to 101·4 instead of 100, the reason being that the whole of the soda is for convenience represented as bicarbonate, whereas a portion of it had become converted to carbonate by loss of carbon dioxide.

In One Tablet.
Sodium bicarbonate  62·0per cent.  38·9grains.
Tartaric acid22·6”13·1”
Sodium chloride6·5”3·8”
Phenolphthalein2·0”1·2”
Formamine3·5”2·0”
Talc2·8”
Gum about2·0”

Hexamethylene-tetramine or formamine, is perhaps better known by its trade names—urotropine, cystamin, urisol, etc.; it does not appear to have been described as of value for obesity.

Small Tablets.

The small tablets had an average weight of 34·3 grains. Analysis showed them to contain sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid, but in this case the latter was in excess and the product acid; the other ingredients were sodium chloride, phenolphthalein, and talc. The results of quantitative determinations indicated the following formula (more carbon dioxide had been lost in this case; the figures add up to 108·5, the reason being that given above):

In one Tablet.
Sodium bicarbonate  34·8per cent.  11·9grains.
Tartaric acid46·3”15·9”
Sodium chloride22·8”7·6”
Phenolphthalein1·6”0·5 grain.
Talc3·0”

The estimated cost of the ingredients of the contents of a 2s. 9d. bottle is 1¾d.