ANUSOL SUPPOSITORIES

“In Hemorrhoids and all Inflammatory Rectal Diseases, let your first thought Continue to be Anusol Hemorrhoidal Suppositories; they have Earned your lasting Confidence.” Thus speaks an attractive folder recently sent to physicians. With a prodigal use of superlatives, the medical profession is told that these suppositories have for years “maintained their World-Wide Reputation” as the “Most Effective, the Safest ... the Most Economical and ... the Most Credit-Bringing of all Topical Rectal Remedies.” The short memory of the public is notorious; from the point of view of the proprietary exploiter, the short memory of the medical profession must be equally well known. How, otherwise, would a firm try to make physicians believe that a product had “earned” their “lasting confidence” when the result of an examination by the Association’s chemists, published in The Journal,[106] had shown that Anusol Hemorrhoidal Suppositories contained practically no “anusol.” Moreover, as the Association’s findings were a practical verification of the findings of a foreign chemist who also had failed to find any “anusol” in Anusol Suppositories, it is not quite clear what is meant by the term “world-wide reputation.” Incidentally, the observant physician will notice that the list of the ingredients given on the Anusol Suppositories labels of 1913 differ from those of the vintage of four years ago. The label of the old boxes gave the ingredients thus:

Bismuth. iodo-resorcinsulfon (Anusol), Zinc oxydat. pur., Balsam Peruv., Ol. cacao, Unguent cereum.

On the latest label, however, we find these ingredients given:

“Bismuth oxyiodid and resorcin­sulpho­nate with Zinc oxid and Balsam Peru, incorporated in suitable base.”

What will the formula be four years hence?​—(From The Journal A. M. A., Oct. 11, 1913.)