The directions given on the label were:
Take half a wineglassful three or four times a day, an hour before or after meals. Persons very weak and debilitated may begin with a tablespoonful and increase the dose as the patient recovers health and strength. It is better to take it without the addition of water.
Analysis showed 100 fluid parts of the liquid to contain 18·2 parts of solids, of which 5·5 parts were sugar (partly inverted) and 2·5 ash, the remainder being of the nature of a vegetable extract. The mineral constituents were only those common to the ash of most drugs, and no metallic salts were found in medicinal doses; nothing of alkaloidal nature was present. The mixture contained 8·1 per cent. by volume of alcohol. In the case of a vegetable preparation of this kind, containing no definite active principle that can be identified chemically, it is not possible to state with certainty the various drugs from which it may have been prepared; a study of its general properties, and a series of careful comparisons, pointed to the present mixture being of similar nature to the compound concentrated solution of sarsaparilla (liquor sarsae compositus concentratus) of the British Pharmacopœia, with the omission of the liquorice, and with the addition of sugar: the drugs in the official preparation (besides liquorice) are sarsaparilla, sassafras, guaiacum wood, and mezereon. A liquor prepared in this manner, with the alcohol reduced to the amount found in the mixture under examination and the aroma slightly increased by adding a little additional oil of sassafras, agreed fairly well both in general properties and the results of chemical examination with the medicine under consideration.
MUNYON’S BLOOD CURE.
Munyon’s Homœopathic Home Remedy Company has an office in London, but the label on the bottle bears the words “Manufactured in U.S. of America.” On the outer package it was stated:
It eradicates all Impurities from the Blood, and cures Scrofulitic Eruptions, Rash on the Scalp, Scald Head, Itching and Burning, and any form of Unhealthy, Blotchy, Pimply, or Scaly Skin;
and similar claims were put forward on the label and in a circular enclosed with the bottle.
The bottle cost 1s. and contained about 200 pellets or pilules, of the average weight of ½ grain. They consisted of sugar; careful search was made for small quantities of medicament, but no other ingredient could be detected. Quantitative determination of the sugar showed just 100 per cent.
The estimated cost of the pilules is one-thirtieth of a penny.