“HYDROCYANATE OF IRON—TILDEN”
W. A. Puckner and W. S. Hilpert
Among the many inquiries received regarding the composition of secret remedies was one in reference to “Hydrocyanate of Iron” manufactured by the Tilden Company, New Lebanon, N. Y. This preparation is advertised as being “unexcelled as a remedy for epilepsy, hysteria, chorea, neurasthenia, locomotor ataxia, neuralgia, migraine, anemic headaches, and all convulsive or reflex neuroses dependent on impairment of the brain or spinal cord.” It is also said to be “valuable in uterine reflex neuroses due to congestion; in amenorrhea due to anemia and chlorosis and suppressed menstruation.”
The term “hydrocyanate of iron” is an unfamiliar one and is not found in any available reference work on chemistry. Thinking that the term might have been loosely applied to ferrocyanid of iron, or Prussian blue (a compound once suggested for epilepsy, but long ago considered useless), the correspondent wrote to the manufacturers asking if such were the case. The Tilden Company answered:
“... our preparation Hydrocyanate of Iron is not Prussian blue in any sense of the word. Prussian blue has no curative properties as applied to all forms of epilepsy. Prussian blue is Ferrocyanid of Iron while our preparation is Hydrocyanate of Iron.”
The only statements in the Tilden Company’s advertising matter regarding the composition of hydrocyanate of iron are the following:
“Hydrocyanate of Iron (Tilden’s) is a correct and scientific combination of well known principles.”
“Hydrocyanate of Iron (Tilden’s) combines well known properties of ferruginous salts with the sedative action of Hydrocyanic acid.”
The last statement would lead one to expect the presence of available iron and cyanogen ions. In fact, the inference to be drawn from all the company’s “literature” is that “hydrocyanate of iron” is a definite chemical compound in the same sense as is ferrocyanid of iron, and that inference is still further borne out in the letter to our correspondent. This being the case, the Tilden Company was again written to and asked for the chemical formula of “hydrocyanate of iron,” with the following result:
“Replying to your inquiry regarding the formula of Hydrocyanate of Iron we beg to state the composition of this preparation is a trade secret and we therefore do not care to furnish the desired information.”
This reply verified the opinion already formed that “hydrocyanate of iron” is a secret preparation. Its analysis was then taken up in the Association’s laboratory.
EXAMINATION OF THE TABLETS
The product appears on the market in cartons said to contain one ounce of one-grain tablets. On the cartons, in addition to the name of the preparation and the name and address of the manufacturers, are the names of diseases for which it is recommended. The tablets, in the specimens analyzed, were dark blue, rather hard and slightly bitter in taste and had an average weight of 0.1382 gm., or about 2 grains. They were found to be practically insoluble in water and dilute mineral acids; aqueous oxalic acid solution partially dissolved them, yielding a blue solution. Boiling with alkali hydroxid solution decomposed the tablets, yielding iron in an insoluble form and a solution of alkali ferrocyanid, as demonstrated by the appearance of a deep blue precipitate on the addition of ferric chlorid solution. The portion insoluble in alkali when boiled with hydrochloric acid yielded a solution containing iron, approximately equivalent to 50 per cent. Prussian blue. These properties are all characteristic of Prussian blue, and, taken together, identify Prussian blue as a constituent of “hydrocyanate of iron (Tilden).” The insoluble residue from the iron determination possessed the properties and constituents of talc and constituted practically one-half of the tablets. Extraction of the tablets with chloroform or ether in the presence of ammonium hydroxid yielded a small amount of organic material which contained bodies having the properties of, and responding to tests for, quinin or cinchona alkaloids and caffein. The presence of a salicylate was also indicated.[95]
From the analysis it is concluded that “hydrocyanate of iron (Tilden)” is essentially a mixture of approximately equal parts of talc and Prussian blue, containing traces of organic matter having the general properties of alkaloids.
Comment: When a firm exploits an abandoned remedy for so hopeless a disease as epilepsy under a name not known to chemistry and with a false representation of its pharmacologic qualities, such action may rightly be assumed to show ignorance or worse. “Hydrocyanate of iron,” if it means anything, means the cyanid of iron, but the preparation put out under that name is, according to our chemists, not cyanid of iron, but the ferrocyanid of iron commonly known as Prussian blue. This substance has been tried for epilepsy and abandoned. Yet the firm recommends it as a “peerless remedy” for this disease:
“The Tilden Company holds the key to the situation in the treatment of epilepsy. We have the remedy that does the work.”
Not that epilepsy is the only disease for which this hypothetical chemical compound may be prescribed. Torticollis has been “successfully treated with hydrocyanate of iron.” In chorea, we are told “a richer and better blood supply” should be furnished the nervous and vascular system and “the irritation of the motor centers” must be allayed.
“Hydrocyanate of iron serves admirably to accomplish both of these purposes. It carries the hemoglobin to the blood in its most easily assimilable form and its hydrocyanic acid possesses remarkable sedative powers....”
It is not possible for it to have any value in anemia because of its insolubility, yet we are told:
“In conditions marked by poverty of the blood producing anemia or chlorosis, reacting on the nervous system and calling for a chalybeate, hydrocyanate of iron (Tilden’s) takes a front rank among the remedies of this class, combining as it does the blood enriching qualities of ferrum with the sedative action of hydrocyanic acid.”
As Prussian blue yields no appreciable quantity of hydrocyanic acid under the conditions existing in the animal organism, “the sedative action of hydrocyanic acid” must be as hypothetical as the chalybeate properties attributed to it.
It is strange that a manufacturer, in introducing a new chemical compound, should have to assure his customers that it “contains no opium or alkaloid of that drug, cocain, chloral hydrate, conium or any of the bromids.” Imagine a firm putting, let us say, potassium iodid—a definite chemical compound—on the market and solemnly guaranteeing that it contained no cocain or chloral hydrate!
Would the Tilden Company of twenty-five years ago have served such mental pabulum in its advertising matter?
One would think that the dictates of common humanity would protect the unfortunate epileptic from the machinations of the nostrum maker, especially from the exploitation of a remedy that has been tried and found wanting. A nostrum, however, merely has to measure up to one standard: Will it pay? Meeting this requirement nothing else matters.—(From the Journal A. M. A., June 19, 1909.)