OXYCHLORINE
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The following report on Oxychlorine has been submitted to the Council by the subcommittee to which it was assigned:
To the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry:—Your subcommittee submits the following report: The Oxychlorine Chemical Company, 1326 Wabash Avenue, Chicago, states in its advertising literature that:
“Chemically, Oxychlorine is the tetraborate of sodium and potassium combined with oxychlorid of boron, thus: 6 (NaKB4O7) BOCl3.”
Analysis of Oxychlorine showed:
| Potassium | 12.26 | per cent. |
| Sodium | 8.20 | per cent. |
| Chloric acid—CLO3 | 25.32 | per cent. |
| Nitric acid—NO3 | 21.70 | per cent. |
| Boric acid anhydrid—B2O3 | 18.63 | per cent. |
| Water, calculated | 13.29 | per cent. |
Thus, Oxychlorine is not a definite chemical substance of the composition claimed, but instead is a mixture of alkali chlorate and nitrate with boric acid. Assuming that the chlorate is present as potassium chlorate and the nitrate as sodium nitrate, the analysis above quoted corresponds to a mixture approximately as follows:
Potassium chlorat | 37.19 |
Sodium nitrate | 29.76 |
Sodium and potassium tetraborate | 2.18 |
Boric acid | 30.52 |
Undetermined | 0.35 |
| ———— | |
| 100.00 | |
Your committee recommends that Oxychlorine be not approved and that this report be published.
The report of the subcommittee was adopted by the Council, and in accordance with the recommendation is published herewith.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
In commenting on the above report it is hardly necessary to call attention to the palpable untruthfulness of the furnished formula or its lack of correspondence to the real composition of the preparation, to the imposing claims made by its pseudo-scientific exploiters or the absurdities, from a chemical standpoint, of the statements made in their literature. These features are more or less common to all nostrums. The physician who prescribes or uses Oxychlorine under the impression that he is getting a definite and unique chemical compound described as tetraborate of sodium and potassium combined with oxychlorid of boron is, according to our chemists, getting simply a mixture of potassium chlorate, sodium nitrate (or, perhaps, sodium chlorate and potassium nitrate), and boric acid in about equal amounts. More than one-third of this mixture is potassium (or sodium) chlorate, drugs by no means harmless.
In order that there may be no suspicion of unfairness to the promoters of the preparation, we quote from one of the advertising circulars sent out by the Oxychlorine Company:
“Oxychlorine owes its recognition as a therapeutic agent to its six principal qualities:
“1. It will oxygenate the blood at the seat of application, maintain nutrition and heal an uninfected solution of continuity of first intention without scar formation.
“2. It will disorganize all pus and ferment-producing micro-organisms, their toxins, ferments and ptomains.
“3. It will restore an inflamed mucous membrane to its normal condition, except where the membrane is sclerosed or atrophied.
“4. It will destroy pathogenic micro-organisms and their toxins in the blood current.
“5. It will stimulate the blood to absorb more oxygen in the lungs than it at the time carries. [We do not know what this means; perhaps the Oxychlorine Company does.]
“6. It is absolutely harmless to the tissues and will not destroy a living cell.”
Surely these people must have access to physiologic and chemical authorities not found in modern medical libraries, or else their esoteric researches into the mysteries of life must have carried them far beyond the ken of our most advanced workers along these lines. The scientific world would receive with great interest information as to how a mixture of potassium chlorate, sodium nitrate and boric acid oxygenates blood, maintains nutrition and causes healing without scar formation. A mixture which will destroy micro-organisms and yet will not destroy a living cell certainly shows a fine sense of selection and discrimination not heretofore expected of a combination of chemicals or of a chemical compound. How like the wonderful elixir of medieval times, which was to the Christian a tonic and to the heathen a poison!
Here is another claim made for this nostrum:
“Two or three rectal injections of a one or two per cent. solution of Oxychlorine and ten grain doses given six to eight times per day is the best and most reliable treatment for typhoid fever.”
If 80 grains of Oxychlorine contain 30 grains of potassium chlorate, three rectal injections each consisting of 1 pint of 2 per cent. solution, would contain approximately 160 grains of potassium chlorate. Such an injection might prove decidedly dangerous, especially when used by one ignorant of its true composition. However, the physician, not the promoters, bears the responsibility.
Oxychlorine sells at $3.50 a pound; the ingredients can be obtained for about 44 cents a pound. Perhaps the margin of profit is intended as a reward due the promoters for the profound physiologic discoveries announced in their reading matter.—(From The Journal A. M. A., July 6, 1909.)