Secret remedies

by British Medical Association

CHAPTER VIII.
DIABETES.

Diabetes, being a disease which runs on the whole a steady course unaffected by anything but diet, does not afford a promising field for the use of drugs; but as drowning men catch at straws, patients who have been told that they are incurable are naturally disposed to try any remedy that holds out a prospect of cure or relief. Although there are a good many proprietary remedies for diabetes, few seem to have a large sale, but such as exist are pushed by the usual pretensions set forth in advertisements and circulars. Every one must admit that few things can be more cruel than to trade upon the hopes and fears of sick people or to sell them worthless remedies with the positive assurance of cure. Yet this is what is done by the sellers of quack remedies, and the Inland Revenue pockets the patent medicine duty without a blush. Some account is here given of two much advertised preparations—Vin Urané Pesqui and Dill’s Diabetic Mixture. It may be objected that Pesqui’s Uranium Wine is not a secret remedy because it is said to contain uranium nitrate, pepsin, and “other appropriate elements” added to “old Bordeaux wine”; but uranium nitrate is a drug well-known to the medical profession, and whatever may be its properties it is not a cure for diabetes. There is no trustworthy evidence that it has ever cured a single case, and the most that can be honestly said of it is that patients have improved in general health while taking it, although it has not influenced the amount of sugar. Yet we are told in this advertisement that Pesqui’s Uranium Wine “positively cures sugared diabetes provided it is resorted to at an early stage and used during a sufficient length of time.” Dill’s Diabetic Mixture appears to consist mainly of extract of hydrastis, a well-known drug, which amongst the many virtues claimed for it has never been shown to possess any influence over diabetes; yet the advertisement says that Dill’s Diabetic Mixture is the “only known remedy for this deadly disease”! There is another triple nostrum for diabetes which, on examination, was found to consist of tablets of aspirin, unsweetened lime-juice, and a pink powder composed of sodium sulphate flavoured with oil of peppermint and tinted with phenolphthalein. These simple remedies were solemnly vouched for by the vendors in the following words: “We have satisfied ourselves that the treatment is an absolute and permanent cure”! Apparently the law cannot reach those who publish deliberately untruthful statements with the object of selling their goods. The words of the judgment of the Lord Justice Clerk in a case with reference to Bile Beans, heard on appeal in the Court of Session at Edinburgh, should have aroused the Government to a sense of its duty to provide protection to the public. The Lord Justice Clerk exposed in plain language the procedure by which the vendors of this nostrum had worked up their business and palmed off their medicine on the public, yet the number of their advertisements does not appear to have diminished.

VIN URANÉ PESQUI.

This medicated wine is made in Bordeaux but is sold in this country from a depôt in London. The price charged for a bottle holding 24 fluid ounces is 8s.

A small booklet, entitled Diabetes and its Cure by the Vin Urané Pesqui, was enclosed with the bottle; a few extracts from this are here given:

It has been shown by medical statistics that there are in France every year 10,000 deaths or more, due to diabetes through a deficient treatment, whilst they could have been cured by taking the Vin Urané Pesqui....

Organic sugar enters the blood together with the alimentary sugar, the former being destroyed by the molecular changes that it undergoes for the nutrition of the different organs. If not sufficiently destroyed, it is productive of glycohemia, and as it passes into the urine it brings forth glycosuria; this pathological state determines, in course of time, particularly among persons suffering from obesity, some of the following diseases: polydipsy (excessive thirst), oedema in the legs, the enfeeblement of the physical and intellectual faculties, visionary troubles, amblyopia, cataract or gutta-opaca, headaches and anaemia, followed by dryness of the skin, successive furuncles, gatherings or boils, eczemas, itching on the skin provoking an irresistible desire to scratch one self, anthrax, urinary gravel, lumbago, sciatica, albuminuria, polyuria (insipid diabetes, without sugar, excessive emission of urine), rheumatism, dropsy, bulimia (insatiable appetite) or polyphagia, azoturia (large quantity of urine with a heavy percentage of uric acid), then fearful complications; pneumonia, prurience, either vulvar or prepucial; diabetic phimosis, gangrene in different parts of the body, particularly in the toes, the nails of which become black; consumption, etc. Great mental worries are also productive of glycosuria....

Pesqui’s Urané Wine positively cures sugared diabetes, provided it is resorted to at an early stage and used during a sufficient length of time.

As soon as the patient has made use of this wine, his thirst is allayed almost instantaneously; his strength reappears; all his functions are gradually restored; his breathing, which the absence of feculents had rendered difficult, becomes easier; he is no longer put out of breath, nor does he feel any lassitude; he can now walk about without undergoing any fatigue; his look improves and his temper assumes a more pleasant character....

The Vin Urané (Uranated Wine) prepared by Mr. Pesqui, of Bordeaux, has been qualitatively analysed at the Barral chemistry laboratory. The result of this analysis points to this medicine being a compound of old Bordeaux wine, in accordance with Bouchardat’s prescriptions, to which the following elements have been added: azotate of uranium, pepsine, and other appropriate elements.