The “Sole proprietor” gives an address in a part of London remote from Brompton, but it is perhaps hoped that the name may suggest some connection with the well-known Brompton Consumption Hospital. The price charged is 1s. 1½d., 2s. 9d., 4s. 6d., and 11s. per bottle; the 2s. 9d. bottle contained 3⅔ fluid ounces.
The origin of the preparation is thus described:
This Specific is prepared from the Prescription of an eminent Physician, who practised nearly forty years in Madeira, he was celebrated for his success in the treatment of Consumption and diseases of the Chest. Upon a visit to this country some years since, he gave the Prescription to a late Physician, who tried it upon five hundred out-patients; its effect was wonderful; it acted like magic upon their Coughs, and prevented that great waste of strength and flesh peculiar to this disease. It will save the lives of thousands and prevent Consumption, by administering it upon the first symptoms of Cough, which will be immediately cured by a few doses.
In a circular enclosed with the bottle it was stated:
A Cough is the forerunner of Consumption. In England alone 50,000 people die of it thus constituting one-fourth of the nation’s death rate annually. It has destroyed more human beings than War, Pestilence, and Famine combined; it neither spares the old nor young, “and there is no family in which this rapacious destroyer of the human race has not had its victim.” It is a well-known fact that people with diseased lungs can live for years, and follow their usual avocations in life, provided they are relieved of the principal feature of the disease—the Cough—which shakes and destroys the very elements of the blood, upon which life is supported. How very valuable and important to all, then, must a medicine be which will arrest and cure so fearful a malady!
The directions were:
Dose.—One teaspoonful three times a day and at bedtime. It may be repeated at night, or at any time when the Cough is troublesome.—Children over five years of age, one-third of a teaspoonful.
The following appeared on the outside wrapper:
In conformity with the Sale of Poisons Act, 1868, this preparation, containing a minute quantity of Laudanum and Chloroform, must be labelled Poison, but its composition remains unaltered.
The preparation was a syrupy liquid of pleasant odour and taste, resembling diluted treacle. Analysis showed it to contain in 100 fluid parts, 61·4 parts of total solids; of this, 35·5 parts were glucose and 9·9 parts cane sugar, and 2·6 parts ash, consisting principally of calcium sulphate. Chloroform, referred to on the wrapper, was not present in sufficient traces to be detected; alkaloid was present to the extent of 0·025 part in 100 fluid parts, of which 0·015 part appeared to consist of the alkaloids of ipecacuanha, and approximately 0·01 part was morphine. The difference between the sugars found and the total solids would be fully accounted for by the non-saccharine portion of treacle; extractive contained in the preparations of ipecacuanha and opium used would also be included in this. Small proportions of other drugs having no well-marked characters might possibly also be present; there was no evidence of any further ingredients, but in the presence of so large a proportion of treacle small quantities of indifferent substances it would not be possible to detect.