SENG
Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry
The Council has adopted the following report and authorized its publication.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
Seng (Sultan Drug Co., St. Louis) is called by the manufacturers:
“... a palatable preparation of Panax (Ginseng) in an aromatic vehicle.”
Regarding ginseng (Panax quinquefolia) the United States Dispensatory, nineteenth edition, page 1603, says:
“The extraordinary medicinal virtues formerly ascribed to ginseng had no other existence than in the imagination of the Chinese. It is little more than a demulcent, and in this country is not employed as a medicine.”
No discussion of ginseng is to be found in the more recently published books on pharmacology, materia medica and therapeutics, evidently because their authors agree with this estimate.
On the other hand, physicians are told through the medium of advertisements appearing in medical journals that Seng is:
“An efficient remedy in all affections in which the gastro-intestinal glands need stimulating.
“Exceptionally useful in atonic indigestion, malnutrition, convalescence from the acute diseases, and all digestive disorders characterized by deranged or depressed functions.” (Woman’s Medical Journal, July, 1914.)
According to the label, Seng is indicated in “indigestion,” “malassimilation,” “malnutrition” and “wasting diseases.” It is also stated—though the preparation is admitted to contain 18 per cent. of alcohol—that to give babies “ten to fifteen drops in water or milk during feeding” is a proper procedure and that “For Colic, Flatulency, etc., the dose for an adult or child may be repeated every half hour until relieved.”
The following are some of the exaggerated therapeutic claims made for this preparation of a worthless drug:
“As a result of its administration the gastro-intestinal secretions are augmented, the digestion of food is substantially increased, and fermentative processes are promptly overcome.”
“Seng will specifically encourage the secretion of the juices in the entire alimentary tract ...”
The formula furnished for Seng is non-quantitative and therefore meaningless. The preparation is exploited in a manner to encourage its ill-advised use by the public, and exaggerated and unwarranted therapeutic claims are made for it. The use of an inefficient or worthless drug like ginseng, moreover, is detrimental to rational therapeutics. The Council therefore voted that Seng be refused recognition for conflict with Rules 1, 4, 6 and 10.—(From Reports of Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry, 1915, p. 129.)