Secret remedies

by British Medical Association

OHRSORB COMPOUND.

The following advertisement is taken from Cassell’s Saturday Journal:

DOCTOR MAKES DEAF HEAR.

A medical book just published describes a German doctor’s wonderfully simple cure for deafness and head noises (a real home cure). A limited number of those books have been secured for readers of Cassell’s Saturday Journal, and will be sent free by post by the publisher, M. Franckel.

Application to the London address given brought a pamphlet of sixteen pages, from which a few extracts are here given:

For years it has been known to Medical Men that the minute vessels or channels of the lymphatic system underlying the skin, covering the bone behind the ear, were intimately connected with those supplying vital nourishment to the middle and internal ear, where we find the common seat of deafness and head noises. If, then, we could medicate through the skin, this important current of lymphatic fluid, controlling the health of the essential parts of the organ of hearing, our medications could be made to flow inward to reach and to cure a disease so deeply hidden within the ear as to be otherwise regarded as incurable. It is the province of this little work to explain why the prescriptions of so many aurists have failed in years past, and to present a new chemical compound which is of the utmost value to deaf people.

Applications behind the ear are recommended in the writings of our greatest ear surgeons. Gruber, Politzer, Delstanche, Grünfeld, and numerous others have given us prescriptions of this kind, and, although their combinations of drugs have failed to produce any remarkable results, they have pointed out the remedies that would cure if combined with a substance which could penetrate the skin freely.... Until lately we possessed no basis for our ointments, embrocations, or plasters, which could freely penetrate the skin.... Happily there is a new basis lately brought to the notice of the medical profession, which has the remarkable property of uniting with the watery secretions of the body in such a way that it (sic) absorbed by the skin, and taken up by the lymphatic circulation (described on p. 1), together with any drugs that are combined with it in the form of an ointment.... To this new basis has been given the name “Ohrsorb.”

Quotations purporting to be from the writings of medical men are given, but no references are provided by which they can be checked; and, indeed, the extracts only refer to a “new preparation” and a “new treatment,” without any indication that the advertised article is the one intended. Another quotation is then given “From the Private Clinical Memoranda of Dr. Kupfinn,” described as an “Hon. Auris Chirurgis,” in which “Ohrsorb” is referred to in a laudatory manner; this is followed by an account of some “typical cases,” but it does not appear that this is part of the quotation, although it is so put that it might easily be taken to be. The pamphlet continues:

It should be clearly understood that Ohrsorb by itself is only a basis used solely for the purpose of providing the active portion of the Author’s Absorption Treatment, and that the cure depends on the medicinal action of the drugs compounded with it in any special prescription. It is for this reason that certain particulars as to each patient’s case are asked for on the enclosed coupon, namely, that the individual form of deafness, head noises, or ear trouble may be treated by an “Ohrsorb” compound specially adapted to it.

The pamphlet proceeds to give reasons for supplementing the treatment by the use of other articles, of which the following are recommended: “Ohraseptic,” “Nazaseptic,” “Specially Prepared Catarrh Tonic,” a nasal irrigator, and a safety ear syringe. It was accompanied by a leaflet headed, “Medical Report on the ‘Ohrsorb’ Treatment,” in which many testimonials are given, but not one from a medical source or anything of the nature of a medical report; also by a “reduced price coupon,” offering a 2s. 9d. tube for 1s. 6d. or a 4s. 6d. tube for 3s., provided the applicant undertook to use it as directed and report the result, and a list of about fifty questions to be answered in connexion with deafness, &c., and catarrh of the nose and throat, concluding with the following paragraph:

As a little return for supplying the tube of “Ohrsorb” compound at the reduced price, and for the very special attention that will be given to your case, the author will be grateful if you favour him with the names and addresses of two or three of your friends who suffer from deafness, head noises, or catarrh of the nose or throat. This is entirely confidential, and your name will not be mentioned.

In order to test the importance attached to the answers to the questions, a supply of “Ohrsorb Compound for Deafness” was sent for, without giving any particulars of the supposed case for which it was required. The compound was at once sent, together with a multiple-typed letter of the usual kind, as shown by the following extracts:

“I hope you will not neglect to write me about your progress with my treatment”; “of course you will appreciate that in obstinate cases Ohrsorb must be persisted with for some time before the improvement can begin to show itself.”

and offering for future supplies three 4s. 6d. tubes for 10s. 6d.

The “Special Ohrsorb Compound” is supplied in collapsible tubes, and the 2s. 9d. size contained just over ½ oz. of ointment. The directions were to rub the ointment once, twice, or thrice a day over the skin close behind the ear, and also from just beneath the ear around to the front of the throat, for three to five minutes.

The ointment, nearly black in colour, contained about 70 per cent. of vaseline, and about 4 per cent. of beeswax, a little soap, and a little saponifiable fat; sulphur and ammonia were present in combination, and the dark constituent appeared to be of the class represented by thiol, tumenol, and petrosulfol, artificial compounds intended to take the place of ichthyol, and like it containing much sulphur in combination but free from its disagreeable odour. The total sulphur found in “Ohrsorb Compound” was 0·8 per cent., which corresponds to about 8 per cent. of one of these substances. An ointment made up with tumenol, soft paraffin, wax, and a little ammonia soap resembled “Ohrsorb Compound” very closely, though the correspondence was not quite complete. It was not considered worth while to isolate the dark constituent in a state of purity permitting of more precise identification than is here indicated; to determine the detailed characterization of such a substance a large quantity would be necessary.

CHAPTER XVI.
REMEDIES FOR EYE DISEASES.

The proprietary articles advertised for the cure of diseases of the eyes, though perhaps not so numerous as some other classes of nostrums, vary a good deal in nature, but the claims made for most of them are equally comprehensive. The results of analysis of a few are here given and it will be seen that two of them, including one called “botanic,” are mercurial ointments. Another advertiser seems to think or pretends to think that cataract can be cured by bathing the eyes with soda alum dissolved in coloured water, while we come across also an “Ophthalmic Institution” selling for external application an anti-cataract mixture consisting of glycerine with a little potassium iodide and starch.