“Each fluidounce of Angier’s Petroleum Emulsion with hypophosphites contains: 331⁄3 per cent. of our specially purified Petroleum; 9 grains of the combined hypophosphites of lime and soda, chemically pure glycerin and the necessary emulsifying agents.”
As regards the nature of the product referred to under the indefinite term “petroleum” the circular states that Angier’s Emulsion is:
“... prepared with refined petroleum specially purified for the purpose. By a process peculiarly our own the crude petroleum, obtained from special wells is so purified that all taste and odor and all objectionable and irritating properties are removed, while the full medicinal value of the oil is retained....”
The composition assigned to Angier’s Emulsion in an advertising pamphlet “The Petroleum Idea,” issued in 1907 differs in that it is said to contain “specially purified crude petroleum” and that each fluidounce is said to contain 2.84 grains of benzoate of sodium. While these quotations convey the impression that certain medicinal constituents of the “specially purified” product obtained from “special wells” are “retained,” a pamphlet recommending the use of Angier’s Emulsion for the treatment of constipation assures us that it produces the “mechanical effects of the purest petroleum” and that it is “purely mechanical in its action.”[78]
LABORATORY REPORT
The statements regarding the identity of the “petroleum” are so unsatisfactory and contradictory (in one place “refined petroleum specially purified for the purpose,” in another “specially purified crude petroleum”—in one place “medicinal” and in another “purely mechanical in its action”) that the help of the Chemical Laboratory of the Association was invoked to establish the character of the petroleum product and to determine the presence or absence of sodium benzoate, at one time declared by the manufacturers to be present but later omitted from the formula. The Association’s chemists reported:
“From a specimen of Angier’s Emulsion recently purchased there was separated by the customary methods of analysis, a yellow fluorescent, unsaponifiable, semi-solid residue which has all the properties of ordinary yellow petrolatum of a consistence somewhat softer than the product described in the Pharmacopeia. It was much more dense than the colorless, non-fluorescent liquid petrolatum now in vogue as a laxative. The preparation contained benzoate, both in the form of free benzoic acid and also in the form of a water-soluble salt probably sodium benzoate.”
The petroleum product contained in the emulsion was thus shown to be intermediate between the ordinary (solid) and the liquid petrolatum. It also appears that a benzoate is still present, though no longer mentioned in the formula.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Sept. 12, 1914.)