PULVOIDS CALCYLATES COMPOUND
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The Council has authorized publication of the following report, not so much because the preparation with which it deals is of any great importance, but as a protest against the large number of similar irrational complex mixtures which are still offered to physicians.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
Pulvoids Calcylates Compound (The Drug Products Co., Inc.) are tablets each of which is claimed to contain:
“Calcium and Strontium Disalicylate, 5 grs.; Resin Guaiac, 1⁄2 gr.; Digitalis, 1⁄4 gr.; Cochium [colchicum?] Seed, 1⁄4 gr.; Squill, 1⁄4 gr.; Cascarin, 1⁄16 gr. with aromatics.”
“Pulvoids Calcylates Compound (Sugar coated orange color)” is advertised (Medical Times, January, 1919) as being “Analgesic-Antipyretic and Diuretic,” and is included in the preparations designated by the advertiser as “Approved Remedies for LaGrippe and ‘Flu.’ ” The claim that “Their tolerance is remarkable” refers not to the physicians who tolerate such products, but to the alleged fact that Pulvoids Calcylates are tolerated remarkably well. The advertisement continues:
“May be given persistently and continuously without gastric disturbances.”
“They are uniformly efficient. More certain in effect than the ordinary Salicylates.”
It would be difficult to find an advertisement of equal length containing a greater number of misleading or directly false statements than are found in this one. The Journal (April 22, 1916, p. 1307) has called attention to the lack of justification for this absurd mixture of drugs and has discussed the preparation with especial reference to its use in acute rheumatism, in which the salicylates occupy a special field. The advertisement just quoted mentions La Grippe and “Flu” (or Influenza) as special fields of usefulness for this preparation. This, apparently, is merely an attempt to spread the sail for any breeze. Salicylates have a field of usefulness in influenza in that they often afford relief from pain. There is no reason to suppose that a mixture containing calcium and strontium salicylates—the “Calcium and Strontium Disalicylate” of Pulvoids Calcylates is probably a mixture of calcium and strontium salicylate[127]—has any greater salicylic effect than an equal amount of sodium salicylate. On the other hand, it is worse than useless to give colchicum, squill and digitalis for the relief of such pains.
Should cardiac dilatation develop, and digitalis medication be required it would be impossible to adjust the dose of such a mixture with special reference to the digitalis action, which alone would be indicated for that condition. No educated physician at present would think of giving resin of guaiac merely because his patient required digitalis, nor would he administer “cascarin,” whatever that may be, in fixed doses, every time he gave a dose of salicylate.
It is impossible to recognize the several effects induced by this therapeutic omneity, and the medical profession should consider it an insult to be offered mixtures such as Pulvoids Calcylates Compound.
Pulvoids Calcylates Compound is, per se, of no great importance; it is one of a type. It has been selected as one of the utterly irrational and therefore potentially dangerous mixtures, that may be found by the score or the hundred in the catalogues of practically every pharmaceutical manufacturing firm in the United States.—(From The Journal A. M. A., June 14, 1919.)