KEENE’S “ONE NIGHT” COLD CURE.
This also is supplied by a Company giving its address as New York and London. The price charged is 1s. 1½d. a box, containing 30 tablets.
This is recommended in the circular enclosed in the box in the following terms:
Keene’s One Night Cold Cure will break up any cold overnight; or money refunded! Influenza cured in three days. Guarantee Label around every Box. If Keene’s One Night Cold Cure fails to Cure your Cold, your money will be cheerfully returned on presentation of Guarantee Label.
Keene’s One Night Cold Cure is in Tablet form and contains nothing injurious, being chiefly composed of Quinine, Cascara, Camphor, and other Ingredients adopted by the Leading Medical Authorities for Colds in the Head, Throat, and Lungs.
The “guarantee label” is worded as follows:
Guarantee.
If Keene’s “One Night” Cold Cure fails to effectually break up any ordinary cold, return this Guarantee with box to your Chemist and he will refund price paid.
Cascara—Bromide—Quinine—Ipecac—
Camphor—Bryonia—tablets. 7½d. per box.
The Keene Co.
Irving A. Keene, Treasurer.
The tablets were coated with sugar, coloured with ferric oxide (so-called chocolate coating). After removal of the coating they had an average weight of 2·07 grains. Analysis showed that they contained no bromide, no quinine, except the minute trace occurring as an impurity in the cinchonine found, and no camphor in sufficient quantity to be detected; there was no evidence of any extract or other preparation of cascara, and if any were present, the quantity did not exceed a small trace; the alkaloid found did not give the slightest indication of ipecacuanha alkaloid; extract of bryonia may have been present, as it has no distinctive characters serving for identification. The ingredients found were:
| Cinchonine sulphate | 0·21 | grain. | (approx.). |
| Acetanilide | 0·32 | ” | ” |
| Calcium carbonate | 0·25 | ” | ” |
| Starch | 0·34 | ” | ” |
| Extractive and excipient | 0·87 | ” | ” |
| In one tablet. | |||
The extractive and excipient possessed no characters indicating the substance from which it was derived; it contained a small proportion of alkali in organic combination, equivalent to 1·2 per cent. of dried sodium carbonate in the tablet, and the mineral constituents usually present in vegetable extracts. The estimated cost of the ingredients for 30 tablets is ¼d.
MUNYON’S CATARRH TABLETS AND
SPECIAL CATARRH CURE.
These two preparations, which have been at one time or another very extensively advertised, are supplied by a Homœopathic Company. They are stated to be manufactured in U.S. of America. The price charged for the tablets is 1s. a package, containing 17 tablets.
This preparation is recommended in the circular which accompanies it in the following terms:
Catarrh Positively Cured.—Are you a sufferer with catarrh? Have you taken all sorts of drugs and patent nostrums? Are you tired of paying big doctor bills without being cured? Are you willing to spend two shillings for a cure that permanently cures catarrh by removing the cause of the disease? If so, ask your chemist for a shilling bottle of Munyon’s Catarrh Cure and a shilling bottle of Catarrh Tablets. The Catarrh Cure will eradicate the disease from the system and the Tablets will cleanse and heal the afflicted parts and restore them to a natural and healthful condition.
On the package it is stated that:
When used in conjunction with the Catarrh Cure, they cure discharges from the head and throat, dryness, soreness and scabs in the nose, pains in the head, and all symptoms of Catarrh.
The directions are:
Dissolve one Tablet in 20 teaspoonfuls of warm water and use this solution for thorough cleansing of the nose and throat, night and morning. Inject through the nostrils with Munyon’s Atomizer or by snuffing.
The tablets had an average weight of 6 grains. Analysis showed the composition to be:
| Sodium bicarbonate | 1·87 | grains. |
| ”chloride | 1·81 | ” |
| Borax, partly dehydrated | 2·20 | ” |
| Phenol (carbolic acid) | trace. | |
| Gum | 0·12 | grain. |
in one tablet. The amount of borax was equivalent to 2·58 grains of the fully hydrated salt.
The estimated cost of the ingredients for 17 tablets is one-twentieth of a penny.
Besides the “Catarrh Cure” referred to in the above as intended for use with the tablets, there is a “Special Catarrh Cure” which costs 4s. a package containing 460 pilules.
On the package it is stated that:
It cures the most aggravated cases of hawking and spitting of mucus, stuffy or oppressed feeling in the head, dryness or scabs in the nose, gloomy, dull spirits, difficulty of breathing, dropping of mucus from the head into the throat, and liability to take cold easily.
The directions are:
Take four pellets every hour. Half quantity for children.
The average weight of the pilules was ½ grain. On first opening the bottle containing them a slight smell of alcohol was noticeable, but the loss of weight on drying was only 0·08 per cent. No medicament of any kind could be detected, nor any substance but sugar; determination of the amount of the latter showed 100 per cent. to be present.
From the odour of alcohol observed it is not unlikely that the pilules had been “medicated” by treatment with some dilute tincture, but if so, the amount of medicament so imparted was infinitesimal.
The estimated cost of 460 pilules is one-tenth of a penny.