OQUIT.
The vendors, a Company with a London address, sell tubes of 20 tablets for 1s. 1½d.
This is advertised as follows:
Neuralgia. Within 10 minutes of taking “Oquit” that frightful nerve-racking pain will be cured. One dose will convince you. Try it.
A pamphlet was enclosed with the package, headed “Oquit for Headaches and Nerve Pains, Headache, Neuralgia, Gout, Sciatica, Rheumatism, Lumbago, Influenza, Feverish Colds, Sea Sickness.” A few extracts are here given:
Oquit ... is made in strict accordance with a medical prescription from drugs which are daily prescribed by the most eminent physicians for the relief of nerve pains. There is nothing experimental about “Oquit.” The drugs of which “Oquit” is composed are perfectly well known, and their claim to be regarded as unrivalled for the purpose has been rigidly tested and endorsed by the leading exponents of modern medicine. What is really unique about “Oquit” is the scientific proportion in which the constituent drugs are combined. It is a remarkable fact, and one which is attested by every medical man, that the action of a drug may be made effective or ineffective according to the manner in which it is prescribed. There are certain subordinate drugs which prepare the way, as it were, for the action of a principal drug, and the proportion between the ingredients of a prescription is of vital importance in relation to the effect produced. It is to this scientifically adjusted proportion that the remarkably beneficial results of “Oquit” are due....
In the cure of Neuralgia, “Oquit” has proved eminently successful when taken in the same way as recommended for headache, with the addition that a third and further doses should be repeated, if found necessary, at intervals of three hours....
In Rheumatism, whether the acute or chronic forms, “Oquit” is extremely beneficial, expelling from the system the inflammatory agents which give rise to the frequently excruciating pains in the joints and muscles involved, and confers a most welcome relief....
In Gout, Sciatica, and Lumbago the eliminating power of “Oquit” is of the greatest possible value. In all these cases, adults should take three “Oquits” every three hours at the commencement of an attack, reducing the dose to two, and then to one, as the pain decreases.
The average weight of the tablet was 5·1 grains. Analysis showed them to contain:
| Acetyl-salicylic acid | 66·2 | per cent. |
| Starch, chiefly maize | 20·0 | ” |
| Talc | 4·2 | ” |
| Gum | 1·5 | ” |
| Extractive | 3·1 | ” |
| Moisture | 5·0 | ” |
| Alkaloid | a trace. | |
As stated above aspirin is acetyl-salicylic acid, and so it may be added is xaxa.
The alkaloid did not show well-marked characters by which it could be identified, but agreed fairly well in its reactions with the total alkaloid of gelsemium; the general nature of the extractive was consistent with its being a preparation of this drug.
The estimated cost of ingredients for 20 tablets is ¾d.