HARVEY’S BLOOD PILLS.

These pills are sold by a Company giving an address in Wales. A bottle, containing 20 pills, costs 1s. 1½d.

The label and the enclosed circular bear the picture of a man’s head, with the words, “Harvey. Discoverer of the circulation of the blood,” with the possible implication that the Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood also discovered or invented these blood pills.

The modest claims made in the circular included the following:

Harvey’s Blood Pills for Skin Diseases. An Unfailing Remedy for Scurvy Sores! Harvey’s Blood Pills for Scrofulous Sores. A Certain Remedy for Ulcerated Legs! Harvey’s Blood Pills for Sluggish Liver. The Surest Remedy for Ringworm! Harvey’s Blood Pills for Erysipelas. The Quickest Remedy for Itch! Harvey’s Blood Pills for Boils. An Effective Remedy for Eruptions! Harvey’s Blood Pills for Rheumatism. The Safest Remedy for Piles!

Harvey’s Blood Pills are purely Vegetable, and contain the best properties of Sarsaparilla, Dandelion, Burdock, and Quinine. They are Warranted Free from Mercury.

Harvey’s Blood Pills fortify the feeble, restore the invalid to health, and do good in all cases. All sufferers should immediately have recourse to these celebrated Pills.

Harvey’s Blood Pills are “specially” suitable for Females. They remove all impurities.

Somewhat lengthy directions were given for diet, etc., as well as for taking the pills, in various cases; from which it appeared that the usual dose is:

For a male adult, one Pill three times a day; a female adult, one Pill twice a day; children one Pill at bedtime.

The pills were coated with French chalk, coloured red externally; when deprived of their coating, the average weight was 2·76 grains. Analysis showed them to contain quinine equivalent to 17·3 per cent. of the crystalline sulphate, 21·7 per cent. of potassium iodide, small proportions of powdered rhubarb and liquorice, and vegetable extract or extracts. A mass prepared from the following formula agreed closely with the pills in general properties and in results on analysis in various ways:

Quinine sulphate17grains.
Potassium iodide22”
Powdered rhubarb16”
”liquorice8”
Extract of sarsaparilla  12”
”burdock12”
”taraxacum12”
Divided into 36 pills.

The estimated cost of the ingredients for 20 pills is ¾d.

PROFESSOR O. PHELPS BROWN’S
BLOOD PURIFIER.

Professor O. Phelps Brown advertises in this country from an address in London; the bottle sold for 2s. 9d. contained 6 fluid ounces.

The following paragraph appeared on the label:

This medicine is a concentrated preparation of Rock Rose and Stillingia, combined with other plants, well-known for their specified action on the blood, which makes a compound medicine, that has never been equalled, and will be hard to surpass in the scientific future. It is impossible to give a full account of its virtues and cleansing capacities on this label, and the Prof. must, therefore, be content with briefly stating that it is an infallible remedy for All Diseases of the Blood, be they Constitutional, Hereditary, or of Recent Contraction. Nearly every ailment known to the medical faculty is in a greater or lessor degree dependent for its appearance and its virulence upon a Disease of the Blood. Ulcers, Tumours, Scrofula Bunches, Fistula, Piles, Painful Eruptions, indeed all afflictions manifested upon the outer surface of the body are the consequences of diseased blood. Many terrible maladies, which take the shape of Internal Inflammation, Sores, etc., and appear in the form of Fevers, Aches, Swellings, Glandular Disturbances, Mental Derangement, and General Debility, also proceed from the same cause. It is an admitted fact that, with Pure Blood and Regular Bowels, no individual ever can be permanently, seriously, or dangerously ill, if ill at all.

Dose.—For Adults, one tablespoonful three times a day before eating. For Children, the dose must be reduced to a teaspoonful.

Analysis showed 100 fluid parts of the liquid to contain 19·7 parts of solids, of which 15·5 parts were sugar (partly inverted); a good deal of mucilage was present, but no alkaloid and no mineral substance except the small quantity of ash always present in vegetable extracts; alcohol was present to the extent of 23 per cent. by volume. Evidence was obtained of the probable presence of a preparation of stillingia, but this drug does not contain any active principle by which it can be certainly identified. Rock rose (Cistus canadensis) has been used to some slight extent medicinally, but no particular virtues appear to have been assigned to it; it is, however, described as bitter and astringent. The 3 or 4 per cent. of extractive matter present in the mixture under consideration showed neither bitterness nor astringency, nor any property by which it could be identified, or which would indicate any medicinal properties.

HOOD’S COMPOUND EXTRACT
OF SARSAPARILLA.

This is an American preparation, but the Company which makes it has offices in London. A bottle, costing 1s. 1½d., contains 2¼ fluid ounces.

The following paragraph appeared on the covering of the bottle:

A trial bottle will convince the most skeptical of the real merit of Hood’s Sarsaparilla, and will enable everybody to test its wonderful power in restoring and invigorating the whole system, in renovating and enriching the blood, in giving an appetite and a tone to the stomach, in eradicating and curing Scrofula, Scrofulous Humors, Scald Head, Syphilitic Affections, Cancerous Humors, Ringworms, Salt Rheum, Boils, Pimples and Humors on the Face, Catarrh, Headache, Dizziness, Faintness at the Stomach, Constipation, Pains in the Back, Female Weakness, General Debility, Costiveness, Biliousness, and all diseases arising from an impure state or low condition of the blood. Hood’s Sarsaparilla is designed to act upon the blood, and through that upon all the organs and tissues of the body. It has a specific action also upon the secretions and excretions, and assists nature to expel from the system all humors, impure particles and effete matter through the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, and the skin. It effectually aids weak, impaired, and debilitated organs, invigorates the nervous system, tones and strengthens the digestive organs, and imparts new life and energy to all the functions of the body. The peculiar point of this medicine is that it strengthens and builds up the system while it eradicates disease.

In a pamphlet enclosed with the bottle it was stated:

It is carefully prepared from Sarsaparilla, Dandelion, Mandrake, Dock, Pipsissewa, Juniper Berries, and other valuable vegetable remedies, in such a peculiar manner as to retain the full curative value of each ingredient used.

The dose was given as:

Adult, ½ to 2 teaspoonfuls; usual dose 1 teaspoonful three times a day; children, less, according to age.

Analysis showed it to contain, in 100 parts by measure, potassium iodide 1·7 parts (7½ grains in 1 fluid ounce), and sugars (partly inverted) 9·1 parts; the total solids amounted to 12·8 parts, thus leaving 2·0 parts of vegetable extract per 100 fluid parts. The concentrated compound solution of sarsaparilla in the British Pharmacopœia contains about 21 parts of solids in 100 fluid parts, so that it may be concluded that the amounts of extracts of “Sarsaparilla, Dandelion, Mandrake, Dock, Pipsissewa, Juniper Berries, and other valuable vegetable remedies” in this mixture were not large. The liquid had a somewhat aromatic odour and taste, in which oil of juniper could not be detected, nor was it recognizable on distillation; none of the other ingredients mentioned is capable of being identified in such a mixture. No alkaloid was present, and careful search for other likely ingredients gave only negative results. The mixture contained 19·6 per cent. by volume of alcohol.